


Locked Away

by JPeterson



Series: Locked Away [1]
Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/F, Incest, Post-Canon, Sibling Incest, Sister/Sister Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 08:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 47,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3283508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JPeterson/pseuds/JPeterson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with a painting and two broken hearts. It ends with a moonlit bedroom and Anna's fingers trailing over Elsa's naked back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Break

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter warnings:  
> One-sided icest, Kristanna, depression, mention of a panic attack.

It starts with a painting and a broken heart. Two, actually.

xXxXx

"Hi, Joan!" Anna waves cheerfully as she approaches, aware of Elsa's amused regard as she pulls her sister into the portrait room by the hand and just barely catches the motion of the blonde head shaking subtly at the corner of her eye. She squeezes Elsa's hand in response, and tuts at the soft, startled noise. "Don't judge, Your Majesty," she scolds, and bites back a smile at the chuckle. "We all have our little idiosyncrasies, and this is mine, okay?"

Elsa holds up the hand that isn't clasped in Anna's, but only until she has to grab for the couch as Anna pulls her into it. They both land with a small bounce and a squeak of springs, and glance around guiltily before grinning at each other like a pair of misbehaving children.

"So." Anna flops into the padded backrest, her hand still wrapped around Elsa's and her head hitting the wall behind her with a low thump as she cranes her neck back and peers up. "Elsa, this is Joan – Joan, Elsa." She flits her free hand into the air and gestures back and forth in a semi-proper, introductory fashion. "Joan suffered through a lot of my ramblings during the..." Her gaze shifts to her sister's face, and then drops. "Well, y'know."

Elsa squeezes her hand, and her mouth tightens. "I'm sorry," she says softly.

"It's alright," Anna replies, because it is. Now. "Just don't lock me out again." She shifts with a sound of fabric on fabric, and ends up with her head pillowed on Elsa's shoulder and their clasped hands nestled in her sister's lap. "Or you'll be in trouble."

The body she's leaning (heavily) on moves in a silent, stuttering laugh, and she feels the odd, cool-and-warm clasp of Elsa's arm sliding around her shoulders while a smile is pressing into the top of her head. "I won't," Elsa murmurs into her hair.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"You better." She closes her eyes and sinks further into Elsa, whose skin is cooler than her own but still warm and pleasantly soothing. Just like when they were children, this is the safest place in the world, and the sensation makes her go almost completely boneless from sheer relaxation. That, in turn, pulls another fond chuckle from Elsa, and she feels the light stroke of gentle fingers travel over the back of her exposed neck.

"Don't fall asleep on me," comes the tease.

"Literally?" Anna rejoins gamely, and smiles at the nod she feels. "I won't." She tilts her head enough that she can see Elsa's face, and is captivated all over again by just how blue her eyes really are. Not blue-with-green like her own, or pale, almost timid blue like their mother's, but  _real_  blue – like summer skies and clean waters and gemstones. They're unusual and beautiful and look like clear, wintery mountain lakes against Elsa's pale skin, and she kinda gets lost just studying them and finding the little flecks of darker or paler blue that mix in here and there.

"I missed you," she whispers; rising up enough that she can kiss Elsa's cheek and linger there for a moment as she steadies herself with the hand that rests on Elsa's thigh.

The fingers on the back of her neck tighten, and when she moves back a little, Elsa releases her hand and reaches up to brush away her bangs with a touch so light it's barely there. "I missed you too," she murmurs, and her touch grows uncertain and halting until Anna smiles. Then it starts skimming slowly over her forehead, down her temple and over her cheek, faint as butterfly wings but there and real and comforting, with neither of them looking away and Elsa's lips slowly starting to shape a smile.

"Anna," she says then, with her voice is as gentle as a spring breeze, and Anna just hums because she knows somehow that it isn't something that requires an actual response. Elsa's simply saying her name because she  _can_.

"Elsa," she returns, with a grin pulling at her lips that blooms fully when Elsa giggles, and then fades when her sister sobers.

She looks so serious – even anxious – with the way her brows come together to form a tiny furrow over the bridge of her nose and how her cheeks move when she at first purses her lips, and then pulls the lower one between her teeth. She doesn't look away, though, and Anna can still feel the touch of cool fingers to the skin on her face. It's slipping lower, traveling over the curve of her jaw and moving towards her chin, and Anna isn't doing a thing to stop it both because she's enjoying it and because she doesn't even want to think about how long it's been since Elsa last had the chance – or the courage – to touch another human being.

But it hurts to see how hesitant she's being.

"Hey." Anna brings her hand up to curl lightly around Elsa's wrist, and feels the tiny start that travels through the pale arm in reaction. But she isn't preventing – just holding."It's okay. Whatever it is, it's okay."

Elsa sighs; her lips pressing together and the air escaping through her nose as her eyes drop to Anna's hand. She stares at it for a long time, and then finally looks up again. Her fingers curve to carefully hold Anna's chin while her thumb brushes over the skin just below her mouth.

"Do you love me?" Elsa questions, and something about the look in her eyes is... she almost looks frightened.

"More than I've ever loved anyone," Anna replies easily. She's going to say more – has a lot more to say on the subject – but she can't, and she's so shocked that it actually takes her a few seconds to figure out the reason, which is that Elsa is kissing her.

 _Elsa_  is  _kissing her_. On the mouth, and while it could be just a step further from their newly-developed habit of kissing on the cheek, all ideas of innocence fly right out of Anna's head when she gasps in surprise and suddenly becomes a lot more familiar with Elsa's tongue than she's ever been. All she can do is stare. At the closed eyes and the long, dark eyelashes that she can see in detail from this close. At the faint freckles scattered across the bridge of Elsa's nose. At the few strands of pale hair that have slipped down over her sister's forehead. Stare, and feel the fingers under her chin, or the hand that settles on her waist, or the way Elsa's breath rushes over her face.

Elsa is kissing her, and it takes way too long for that message to make it from Anna's brain and down to her hands, but when it does, they reach up. She means to nudge, to gently pull away, but she  _shoves_  hard enough for Elsa to lose her balance and end up slumped back with her shoulders against the armrest. She means to clear her throat and ask calmly, to be collected, but all she can do is  _stare_  with this completely useless expression of... oh, God, she hopes it isn't horror, but it probably is, because that's how Elsa is staring at her.

"Elsa," she whimpers. "We're  _sisters_."

And Elsa just... something in her just  _breaks_. Something very essential in those blue eyes absolutely shatters, and because it happens before Elsa squeezes her eyes shut, Anna gets a front row seat and swears that she can hear the rending of her own heart even over the sound of it beating so rapidly that it's no more than a continuous roar of noise.

When ice starts coating Elsa's clenched hands and she folds her arms across herself to hide them, Anna knows that she should reach out. When Elsa's face shifts into carefully practiced neutrality, Anna knows that she should speak up. When Elsa stands, Anna knows that she should pull her back down because they have to  _talk about this_  and talking is kind of what Anna  _does_. But all she can do is sit there, hopelessly mute, and watch as The Queen – not Elsa – gives her a small, polite smile that's completely at odds with both the tears and the pain and the  _I'm sorry_  in her eyes, then turns and strides from the room under a flutter of tiny snowflakes.

Anna spends only God knows how long staring at the cushion where Elsa sat, with her heart pounding against her ribs and icy hands clawing at the inside of her stomach while she tries to make sense of everything -  _anything_. She's horrified and confused and frightened and sad all at the same time, and her thoughts are whirling so much that she has to drop her head into her hands and clutch at her own skull to stop herself from feeling as if it's about to spin right off of her neck. Not that it helps.

She doesn't understand exactly what just happened, but she  _is_  painfully aware of one thing. Two things.

There are no more safe places. And – she closes her eyes tightly, buries her face in her hands and feels her body heating from the sobs building in her chest – she and Elsa just lost each other all over again.

xXxXx

Every night, it snows, but it never actually reaches the ground. It just swirls in the air around the castle, so it takes a few days before the people of the capital city start to notice. The guards and staff, of course, don't say anything (they're too polite, too mindful of their positions), but Anna swears she can feel the questioning glances on her no matter where she goes. They're burning into the space between her shoulderblades whenever she's not hidden away in her own room – sometimes even then – wondering, waiting and watching, as if she's the one to blame for the queen's sudden, mysterious behavior.

"Your Highness," a man in the city market says to her one day. "Forgive me, but is the queen well? We've seen it snow at night lately."

Initially, Anna wishes that she'd stayed in her room like the past three days. Then she has to tamp down on a sudden surge of anger, because dammit,  _she's angry with Elsa_  and doesn't want the reminder of what happened, unknowing though it is. Next she has to fight back tears, (she hides it by looking down under the guise of brushing something off her dress) because she's terrified at the thought of losing Elsa even though she already has.

She ends up smiling and telling the man that the queen is fine, which really is the best way she can think of phrasing it.  _The Queen_  is  _fine_.  _The Queen_  because the woman she sometimes catches a glimpse of isn't Elsa, and  _fine_  because she isn't happy or sad or angry or anything – just  _fine_.  _Alive_  would probably be a better term, but using that would cause a lot of concern, so  _fine_  it is.

Anna's pretty sure that she turns into  _The Princess_  herself on the rare occasion that they do actually look at each other these days. They both become their titles rather than themselves, and she's willing to bet that it's probably for the same reason – as a defense mechanism. A way of putting some distance between their real selves and something that's too sensitive – too  _raw_  – to even think about.

But it's still the only thing she  _can_  think about. Her head is a jumbled mess of conflicting emotions because she's upset with herself for hurting Elsa and mad at Elsa for pushing this on her. She's mourning the loss of her sister so soon after finally getting her back and cursing her own cowardice for hiding from everything. She's angry that Elsa is locking her out again and angry at herself for  _being_  angry because she's clearly no better. She's feeling guilty for lying her way out of leaving her room whenever possible by claiming illness. She's scared for Elsa because no matter how much she tries to push it away, she keeps seeing the look in those eyes over and over again. She wants to fix everything but she  _can't_ , and she's irrationally angry with herself for that, too.

Anna isn't sleeping very much, and when she finally does, dark dreams of losing Elsa make her wake up crying before she gets any worthwhile rest. She guesses – while staring out of the window and watching the moonlight reflect off of the flurries - that the nightly snowfall is probably for similar reasons, and when the phrase  _running in the family_  pops into her head, she has to spend several seconds muffling a near-hysterical laugh in her pillow because there's the problem.

It would be so much easier to deal with the fact that another woman wants her if that woman wasn't her sister, and it's a fine bit of irony that the one person she could conceivably ask for advice is the one at the heart of all the confusion. It would also be easier for Anna to get a handle on everything if the fact that the other person is a woman  _was_  the problem.

It isn't. It barely even registers.

xXxXx

When eight days have passed, a servant brings word from the guards at the city limits that Kristoff has returned. He's been away for a good fortnight to talk business with several groups of ice harvesters (as Royal Ice Master and Deliverer, he doesn't have the time or the ability to collect enough ice on his own, so cooperation is important), and Anna jumps at the chance to see him again and tries not to think about how a lot of that's because she's desperate for something in her life to feel  _normal_. It's not like she hasn't genuinely missed him – she just hasn't really had the time to for the past week or so.

The first familiar face she sees when she reaches the little patch of city that belongs to Kristoff (a good-sized house with an adjoining stable decreed to him by Elsa) is Sven, who's looking newly brushed and actually manages to make her giggle when he gives an enthusiastic, lowing greeting and then proceeds to slobber all over her face. Which, when she thinks about it, might be  _part_  of the greeting. Kristoff – unsurprisingly – is the next to emerge. He's noticeably less well-groomed than Sven, but he's always shown himself to be the kind of guy who puts others first, so Anna doesn't give it much thought and instead chuckles when he goes red at the light kiss she gives him.

Kristoff is a sweetheart and he's anything but stupid, so of course it takes less than half an hour before this happens:

"So what's bothering you?" he asks straightforwardly around the half of a carrot in his mouth, and gives the last half to Sven who's right there even though they're in the house and not the stable.

Having a fully grown reindeer in a nice, upper-middle-class house is a little odd, but it's also very direct and very Kristoff, and Anna reflects that this unusually blunt honesty plays a big part in why she loves him. Besides, it's comforting to have Sven's head butting her in the chest until she wraps her arms around his neck and can listen to him crunching the carrot when she closes her eyes. Kristoff doesn't push; he never does. Instead, he just sits down (on a table, with his feet pulled up and his dusty boots still on, which is also very him) and spends his time inspecting equipment and reins and ties until Anna's tears have dried on her cheeks and she forgets to wonder when she started crying in the first place.

"Elsa," she says, and pauses to clear her throat when she realizes how hoarse her voice is. "We got into a pretty big fight." Which isn't entirely true, but it's the best concise explanation she can come up with.

"Women," Kristoff mutters with a roll of his eyes, and instead of taking offense Anna is snickering, because Sven whacks him in the back of the head with one of his antlers and she knows that they're acting goofy to cheer her up and keep her from brooding.

"Hey." Some moments later, there's the resounding thud of Kristoff's boots and mass landing on the wooden floor before Anna's leaning against him, and his large hands are surprisingly gentle when they rub her back and stroke her hair. "It'll be okay," he promises, and rocks her a little when she rests her forehead against his broad chest. "You and Elsa have been through too much to let this come between you, right? You just have to find a way to talk to her."

"Easier said than done," Anna mutters into his vest, but still squeezes her arms a little around his waist because he's being a thousand kinds of supportive and she really, really needs that. "We hurt each other... a lot. I don't even know where to begin."

"Just try," he tells her, and Anna's almost falling asleep against him even though he smells a little funny. "Keep trying. Camp outside her door if you have to. I've got a sleeping bag you can borrow, if you want."

Going by his voice he's halfway between joking and serious, and she laughs a little again because it's so much better than crying. "You make me sound so stubborn," she mutters, and peers up at him.

"No," he grins, and then makes a goofy-looking face when she sticks her tongue out at him. "You do that just fine on your own, feistypants."

Anna thumps a loosely curled fist against his chest. "Stinker," she accuses warmly, and smiles when he does before rising up to kiss him. His lips are a little rough against hers, but his mouth is warm and even the stubble on his face feels gentle when his arms curl tighter around her, and they end up breaking apart with twin sets of snorting laughter only when Sven apparently feels left out and manages to somehow wedge his massive head between them.

"How long are you staying for?" Anna asks when night has fallen and she's getting ready to go back to the castle.

"Just until tomorrow," Kristoff tells her, and holds up her light jacket while she slips into it. "We've still got a lot of harvesters to talk to, so we gotta head east next."

It's not exactly a lie, but she knows that it's a change in his plans that's probably come about because of her. Kristoff was supposed to stay for at least a week before heading out again, but he's spending barely a night in his own bed and she's pretty sure it's because he doesn't want her to worry about entertaining him when her relationship with Elsa is rocky.

"How long will you be gone?" she questions. "When are you leaving?"

"Around three weeks, and before dawn," he responds, and hugs her. "So no coming to see me off, okay? Focus on Elsa."

"Is that an order, Ice Master?" Anna teases, and smiles when he laughs.

"As if you'd take orders from anyone," Kristoff grouses goodnaturedly, and briefly lifts her off of her feet. "No, it's just a suggestion. You and me... that might last and it might not."  _Wow_ , that kinda hurt, but she's impressed that he can be this honest. "Elsa's your sister, and that's never gonna change. You're stuck with each other for better or worse, so make it for better, alright?"

"Alright, I'll do my best." She gives him a kiss on the lips and plants one on Sven's nose for good measure, which gets her slobbered on again. "Be safe – both of you - and  _that_  is an order."

Kristoff is leaning against the doorframe with a smirk, and salutes her as she steps past him. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Prat!" Anna calls over her shoulder, and his chuckles follow her until she turns the corner and can see the castle in the not-so-far distance. It's snowing again, she realizes, but the icy hand gripping her gut is weaker now, and she holds her head high as she walks.

It's well past time to stop fretting about the problem, and start looking for a solution.

xXxXx

The next morning is the first time in a week and a half that Anna goes to the dining room for breakfast; she actually meets a maid carrying a tray on her way there and avoids bumping into her and sending plates and cups and cutlery clattering down the stairs because it's also the first, full night's sleep she's gotten in a long while. The maid takes the tray and its contents back to the kitchen with a curtsey, and Anna half-jogs down the steps to ground level with a smile on her face because she's going to enjoy this 'good mood' thing while it lasts.

She's nowhere near naïve enough to think that everything is going to resolve itself just because she has Kristoff's support – no matter how much it means to her. Elsa wants her –  _desires her_  – so there's obviously deeper issues at hand that she can't afford to take lightly if she's to have any hope of getting things back to even somewhat easy between them.

Anna still doesn't know how to go about this, but it seems like actually showing her face in Elsa's general vicinity is a good place to start. She just wishes that her mind wouldn't bring that kiss back to the forefront of her thoughts the second she sets eyes on her sister, because it makes her heart race and her throat go dry while her palms grow sweaty, and nervous really isn't what she wants to be right now.

"Good morning," she greets quietly as she approaches the single table and its lone occupant, and gives herself a mental pat on the back for managing to keep her voice steady. Okay, so she  _does_  almost walk into the table when Elsa's head jerks up in surprise and their eyes meet, but she doesn't have time to either trip or feel embarrassed because that blue gaze drops back down so fast it almost seems like it was burned somehow.

"Good morning," Elsa says to her breakfast, and her voice sounds uncomfortably tight even though her face reveals nothing. Her eyes might give an idea of what she's thinking – they usually do – but she is  _not_  looking back up even when Anna seats herself next to her.

Breakfast looks lovely in the half-second's thought Anna actually gives it, but she doesn't notice any tastes or scents even as she eats. She's talking (babbling, rambling) between bites and watching Elsa from the corner of her eye, painfully aware of the agonizing tension in the slender shoulders and the dark circles under her eyes. And she's trying to make things a little less tense between them by just pretending that everything is normal, but she still has the sinking feeling that the only reason Elsa isn't fleeing the room is the small handful of servants waiting in a line by one wall, because she clearly wasn't expecting Anna to show up today, either.

"Did you sleep okay?" Anna asks, because the air in here is growing ever more stifled and she's desperately trying to find  _something_  to say that'll lift the heavy atmosphere. She's always been able to do that, but for some reason that particular talent is utterly failing her now. Elsa is giving no more than the minimum required in terms of answers ('yes', 'no', 'hm') and Anna's getting progressively more frustrated as the seconds tick by, because she's  _trying_  here and why can't Elsa make an effort?

"I slept well," she mutters after a full, thirty seconds of silence, and then covers her eyes with one hand and wonders if maybe someone dropped her on her head when she was very young. Because yes, that's  _absolutely_  what Elsa needs to hear when she's obviously not getting enough rest – that Anna is sleeping like a baby. Which she isn't – hasn't been ever since that day apart from last night - but Elsa doesn't know that.

The rest of the meal – and thank God there isn't much left – goes by in exponentially increasing, awkward silence with Anna keeping her face aimed towards her own plate, but glancing up every now and then as discreetly as she can. The tendon in Elsa's jaw is jumping on average once every three seconds, and she's sitting so straight-backed that Anna's surprised she can't hear bones creaking. When the plates and cutlery is cleared away by the maids, Elsa's left hand is curled tightly around the stem of a silver goblet, and Anna can see her swallowing from the corner of her eye when the door swings shut behind the servants and they're left alone.

Now's probably the best chance she's going to get, so she reaches out a hand. "Elsa." She keeps her voice soft and is vaguely aware of speaking like she would to a frightened animal. "I'm sor-"

The second her fingers settle on Elsa's bare wrist, the water in the goblet freezes so abruptly that it explodes, and the now-empty chalice rolls around on the table with an abnormally loud drone; its inside and stem covered in spiky, white ice even as both of them snatch their hands back.

" _Don't_ ," Elsa whispers harshly, and cradles her left hand in her right as she squeezes her eyes shut. "Don't touch me. Please."

Then she's gone, and Anna flops back into her chair with a groan and digs her fingers into her thighs.

Damn, damn,  _damn_.

xXxXx

Elsa doesn't take her meals in the dining room for the rest of that day or at any point during the following one, and while Anna fully admits to herself that she's hurt by that, she tries to be understanding and has Gerda make sure that food is taken to the queen in her chambers or her study or wherever she is, because Anna doesn't know. No matter where she looks, it's as if Elsa was there mere moments ago and she just missed her, and she wonders if maybe Elsa found a way to craft little snow-pigeons or something that can keep an eye on her and warn her sister whenever she approaches.

So she has the staff take care of keeping the queen fed and tries not to feel like she's been punched in the chest when she starts keeping her distance again, because that's obviously what Elsa wants right now and Anna's just gonna have to deal with it and wait.

But when she rolls over in the middle of another sleepless night and sees the fully opaque ice that coats her window, she can't stop the tears.

xXxXx

There's still no sign of snow during the day, Anna notes over the next week or so; chiefly because she has to try to figure this out  _somehow_  or she's going to lose her mind. Every day is an almost textbook example of late summer in Arendelle; warm and sunny with maybe a couple of showers giving some relief from the sun here and there, and the only time any snow or ice shows, it's exclusively in or around the castle and only well after the sun has set. Presumably, this means that Elsa – just like Anna – has an easier time with whatever it is she's dealing with during daylight hours where there's work to be done and distractions to be found, and that she's only forced to give in to the pain at night when there's nothing to keep her mind off of it.

Anna's spending a lot of her moonlit hours wandering. She can't sleep in her own bed because it's too dark and silent and open to  _thinking_  in her room, but she generally manages to nod off in front of the fire in the library when she's read enough that her head is filled with fact or fiction or fantasy instead of thoughts about her own life. It's at least educational, and she supposes that she should probably be glad that her body seems to have grudgingly adjusted to her lack of sleep so she's no longer walking into walls several times a day. And she is, but mostly she's back to being angry with Elsa.

It's not that she doesn't get that Elsa's hurting too – that much is so patently obvious that it's almost enough to make her nose bleed. But they're not  _getting anywhere_ , and it's driving her crazy. Everything is stagnant, standing still, not moving, stuck, trapped, jammed, wedged (at least her vocabulary is expanding with all the reading she's doing lately) and they can't just keep doing this tired old song and dance until the end of time. Something has to change because anything that stops changing is essentially dead, and Anna is not willing to just let her relationship with Elsa wither away and die.

Even if Elsa is. And  _damn_  that thought hurts.

She's walking as quietly as possible when she approaches the door to the queen's chambers, because even from several feet away, she can see the light coming from under the door in the dark hallway. More than that, she can see how the light is blocked by a shadow at even intervals, as if the occupant of the chambers is pacing.

Again, she thinks with more than a faint trace of wry humor, that sort of thing seems to run in the family.

"Elsa?" she calls softly when she comes to a halt in front of the door and rests one palm against it. A glance down lets her see the shadow disappear, and she rolls her eyes. "Look, I  _know_  you're in there," she points out. "I know you're hurting, and I'm sorry if this sounds childish or selfish or stupid, but  _we both are_. Hiding from each other isn't going to solve anything, and if you aren't willing to come to me, then I guess I have to turn over an old leaf and start this little family tradition up again."

Jesus. Anna bites down on the tip of her tongue and pinches the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry," she then sighs. "I don't mean to be bitter. I just... I miss you, okay? I know I'm losing you but I don't understand  _why_  and it's driving me crazy because all I want is to find a way to make this better. I can't do that alone, Elsa. Neither of us can. We need each other to get past this, and you know exactly what I'm talking about."

"You remember that day," Anna says, and there's nothing in her tone that indicates any kind of question. It's simply a statement of fact. "And I know I'm too old to pull this card, but you promised not to lock me out again, Elsa. You  _promised_." She hears her own voice break, and clears her throat before sniffing softly. "And I'm gonna hold you to that, whether- whether by simple or extreme means, because I can make you honor your promise in a court of law, y'know. Theo- Theoretically, I could sue you for breaching one of the prime clauses of the Treaty of Monarchist Rule of 1478 – verbal contracts." Her forehead rests against the door, and she snorts wanly. "So that's how desperate I am to talk to you, Elsa. Because it's still valid and from what I can tell, me doing that could potentially strip you of the crown, and I really don't want that, because you're  _good_  at being the queen and people love you.  _I love you_. But I am so  _spitting mad at you_ right now that I can barely think."

For a moment, Anna just breathes and studies the shadowed, eloquent woodwork in front of her face. It's silent, of course, and there's not a single sound coming from the other side, either. And she doesn't really know why – it might be the lack of sleep or the fact that her emotions are totally shot and overworked – but she just feels this surge of white-hot  _anger_ and ends up  _slamming_  her fist into the thick, oak frame hard enough to take the skin off her knuckles and send an echo of the resulting bang traveling down the hallway.

" _Fuck._ " Anna cradles her now aching hand with a hiss, then leans back against the door before sliding down it and sinking to a graceless seat on the floor as the last few minutes sink in. "What's  _wrong_  with me?" She's only vaguely aware of the fact that she's crying as she stares at her reddening skin and flexes her stinging fingers, and she almost doesn't notice how the surface of the door shifts a fraction as if someone was leaning against it from the other side, but she does feel the wood cool.

"What the hell am I doing, Elsa?" she weeps, and thumps the back of her head against the door. "I punched the wall, I  _threatened you_ , I... God, I don't- wouldn't- I'm sorry. I'm sorry." And she needs to get out of here – as in  _right now_  - so she gets to her feet and feels her legs quake with the effort of holding her body up. "I have to-" A breath, a second, and she consciously has to remind herself to inhale more deeply. "Just- I'll, um... see you later."  _Breathe!_  "Okay? Okay."

Then she's running because  _she has to get away_ , and she's kind of in disbelief that her shaking legs can support her at all and that her lungs are even getting enough air, but she's tearing down the hall so fast that she's almost out of earshot when she hears the yell.

"Anna!"

She doesn't stop or even turn, because she just doesn't have the headspace to deal with anything or anyone.

"Anna!"


	2. The Pillar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings:  
> One-sided icest, mentions of Kristanna. Anna being a competent dork. Elsa being a protective badass.

The role-reversal is almost funny. Just a few days ago Anna was the one trying to reach Elsa, and Elsa was the one locking herself away. Now, it's the exact opposite, and if Anna had been a bigger fan of situational irony, she probably would have laughed. As it is, she's too busy thinking.

She scared the living daylights out of herself that night in front of Elsa's door – and Elsa too, apparently, which really wasn't her intention. She remembers running away but not how she got to her room, and she's kind of wishing that she could forget arriving, because she threw up pretty damn violently. At least she was alert for long enough to tell Elsa that she was alright, or she's pretty sure the door would have been smashed open in five seconds or less.

Anna's locked it, and the only person allowed in right now is Gerda. It isn't out of spite, though she recognizes the fact that it conceivably could be. No, she's just thinking, and wants to finish thinking before she talks to Elsa. She's told her as much, and it's not like she's denying her entirely, either, because-

 _Knock, knock, knock-knock, knock_.

"I'm okay," she calls, and then picks up on the sound of footsteps receding.

Well, because of that. Whenever Elsa knocks (which happens several times a day and never fails to make her smile). Anna says that she's okay, and she is. She's actually doing better than she has been ever since the day with the kiss. She's almost sleeping through the night again, she's eating everything Gerda places before her (which is a lot - how the hell had she lost all that weight and not noticed?) and she can tell that she's able to think a good deal more coherently now, too. She isn't dumb enough to believe that the hard stuff is over with since there's still a doozy of a talk to be had with Elsa, but at least they both seem to be somewhat on the same page by now.

Maybe sometimes you really do have to hit rock bottom before you can make your way back up, Anna muses as she peers up at the canopy above her bed, and that's a good lesson to learn, even if it isn't the most important one that she's realized lately. No, what she's really learned is that she can't just blindly expect Elsa or Kristoff or anyone else to pick her up; to save her, to use that phrase. It isn't fair to anyone involved, and certainly not when the 'knights' of her choosing have no idea they've even been chosen.

Sometimes, the princess needs to learn how to save herself.

xXxXx

The next time Anna stops outside the door to Elsa's chambers, it isn't in the middle of the night. It is, in fact, mid-evening on the twentieth day after the kiss in the portrait room, and she isn't bothering to muffle the sound of her footsteps this time. That's probably why the door practically flies inward before she's even raised her hand to knock, and while Anna's startled enough that she wants to take an instinctive step back, she's wrapped up in Elsa's arms before she gets the chance to. The hug is tight enough to make her squeak in surprise, and her arms flail a little before she laughs softly and wraps them around Elsa in return.

"I missed you too," she whispers into the silk-clad shoulder, and smiles at the kiss that's pressed to her temple. "I'm okay, Elsa. I promise."

Elsa just cradles the back of her head with one hand, and exhales slowly. " _God_ , Anna."

"Pick one," she quips, and feels the back under her hands move in a silent laugh. "I'd rather be Anna."

She's aware of the fact that she's currently wrapped rather intimately in the arms of another woman, and one who presumably harbors a good deal of physical attraction for her if past events are any indication. Maybe that should disturb her, especially since the woman in question is also her sister in flesh and blood, but it doesn't bother her in the slightest precisely  _because_  this is Elsa, and because Anna knows now that she was wrong that day in the portrait room.

This is still the safest place in the world.

"You've lost weight," Elsa says guiltily when she pulls back enough for Anna to see her face, and Anna wrinkles her nose in response because yeah, she has, but so has Elsa, now that she's actually looking at her.

"Gerda'll take care of that," she offers with a half-grin, and doesn't shy away from the cool fingers that are tracing her slightly more prominent cheekbones. "I've been feeling about as stuffed as a Christmas goose the past few days, that's for sure."

"That's a lovely mental image," comes Elsa's dry voice, and Anna's tugged forward enough that her sister can close the door and give them a little more privacy – not that the hall is in any way crowded.

"I try," Anna agrees, and traces her fingers over a few ribs that were significantly less easy to count just a few short weeks ago. "Should I sic her on you, too?" she wonders, and ends up smirking at the look that earns her. "No, huh? Elsa, you're thinner than I am."

It's true, too. Not that either of them is looking starved, but Anna can definitely see the difference between today and earlier, and now that's she's feeling better herself, she wants her sister to experience the same thing.

"I haven't been eating less," Elsa defends, taking a step back and looking down at herself with a puzzled expression. "If anything, I've been eating  _more_. I'm not sure why this is even happening."

She's telling the truth, Anna knows, because she's been asking Gerda every day. She knows that the staff has been taking more than the usual amount of food to Elsa during meals, and rarely – if ever – taking anything back to the kitchens. So she doesn't get it either, because that's the same thing she's been doing and they've both lost weight in spite of eating noticeably more than normal. Anna has been on the  _eat everything in sight_  diet for weeks, and while she did joke about feeling stuffed, that actually hasn't been true until the past few days. Until she found a way to stop  _hurting_  so much all the time.

Then a thought strikes her, and she chases it. "Elsa, when you were on the North Mountain, what did you eat?"

"I-" Elsa starts, and then stops. Blinks. Stares. "I didn't. I just... never got hungry." She sets her hands on her hips and stares at the wall; frowning as if that poor section of stone and wood is personally responsible. "So I can stay on a mountain with no food and not feel any hunger whatsoever, but when I'm here, I stuff my face and shed weight faster than a hyper-metabolic rabbit? How does that even  _work?"_ she demands of the wall, and Anna's having to bite her lip to keep from laughing because Elsa's got her queen-face and monarch-voice on, and she looks so regally annoyed that it's actually sort of cute.

But she might have an idea for what's causing this, so she clears her throat. "I think," she starts a little hesitantly. "That maybe it has something to do with your magic." Elsa's frowning at  _her_  now, but she's listening, so Anna pushes forward. "I mean, when you were up there, you were living in a castle you'd  _made_  with your own magic – the happy kind, you know? Maybe something about all that positive stuff around you just sort of... kept you fed. But lately, every night you- Oh, Elsa, look at me, it's nothing to be ashamed of. You're hurting, so of course your magic reacts, and I think maybe the  _negative_  energy is affecting you now – that it's draining you faster than your body can keep up with."

Elsa doesn't say anything for a little while; she just bites her lip and studies her own hands, turning them over a few times and finally clenching them before letting them drop to her sides. "Nothing like this happened when we were children," she notes, but Anna can tell by the look in her eyes that she's largely agreeing with her. This one point just doesn't fit the theory.

"I know," Anna says, and then takes a breath. "And I think that might be my fault. Remember the goblet, that morning in the dining room?" She waits for Elsa to nod, and it doesn't take long – she doubts either of them will forget that little firework for some time. "The lip of it was pointing towards me when the water in it froze and expl- hey, hey, let me finish, okay? Elsa, I remember what that looked like. There were  _so many_  of those tiny little shards of ice, all coming straight for my face, and  _not one of them touched me_. In fact, when you'd left and I'd kinda gotten my head back on, there were little strips of water next to my chair, like this." She uses her hands to draw short, semi-circular lines on either side of her waist. "And not a single drop anywhere on me. I checked.  _Your ice weaved around me in mid-air_."

There are other things she's noticed during her time in self-imposed isolation. Like the way her room always stays toasty warm even when the window and outside wall is covered in ice, or how the flurries in the portrait room that day never landed directly on her. And then she glances down and smiles; not because there's white ice spreading out from around Elsa's feet, but because there's a perfect, wide circle of completely dry floor around her own.

"Look," she says, and points down. "Even when you're producing this-" Anna waves a hand in the air, as if grasping for a word. "-negative ice, if you want, it's avoiding me entirely on its own." Then those blue eyes are are back on hers, wide with dawning realization, and all Anna can do is smile. "Your powers can't hurt me anymore."

Something breaks in Elsa's eyes again in that moment, but this time it's in a good way. It's so strong that it actually sends her crumbling to her knees, and when Anna drops down with her, the crystals are retracting under her before she even touches the floor.

"See?" she whispers, and feels her throat close up at the way Elsa's staring at the ice in absolute wonder. There are silent tears trailing down her cheeks and tiny tugs of emotion at the corners of her lips, and Anna's caught at least half a dozen droplets on her own fingers by the time her sister looks up and their eyes meet. She watches Elsa's mouth work for a few moments without any actual words emerging. Then the blonde head finally shakes while Elsa's lips quiver, and she raises one hand and lets it cover itself with the white ice, and just leaves it like that with the palm turned to Anna and her eyes waiting, pleading.

 _Make me believe it_ , that look seems to say, and Anna takes a breath and prays that she's right as she lifts her own hand and slips her fingers between Elsa's frost-covered ones. And she  _is_  right, because she feels nothing but soft skin and can literally see the ice evaporate in a steadily-expanding line around the section of Elsa's hand that she's touching.

If something broke in Elsa before, it absolutely  _shatters_  now. She just...  _cries_ , completely without sound. Great, heaving, silent sobs with her fingers curled around Anna's and her eyes tightly shut and her other hand clamped over her mouth. And Anna's wrapping an arm around her sister and pulling her forward until the blonde head is resting against the front of her shoulder; she's rocking and shushing and comforting and just trying to be there.

"I can't hurt you anymore," Elsa whispers with complete, aching wonder in her voice, and her stuttering breathing is warming Anna's chest through the bodice of her dress while her hand fists in Anna's skirt. "Oh, God, Anna, Anna,  _Anna, I can't hurt you anymore_." Her hand is holding Anna's so tightly and so gently all at once, and Anna starts crying a little herself when she presses her face into Elsa's hair, because Elsa sounds so relieved that it's actually kind of breaking her heart.

"What did you mean?" comes the soft question a while later, when all the tears have dried and Anna's slumped back against the door with her legs extended and Elsa's head in her lap. "When you said it was your fault?"

"Mph?" Anna lifts her head from where it's sort of lolling to the side, and has to spend a few seconds thinking about the question before she catches up. "Oh. Well, I think I've been linked with your powers somehow. Maybe." She sends Elsa a glance. "I don't really know a lot about how they work."

"Nobody does," is the wry answer, and Elsa turns onto her back to better face her without any apparent care for what lying on the floor is doing to her dress. "Not even me."

"True." She chuckles at that, and scrunches her hand a little in the soft hair between her fingers. "But the way I see it, my heart was frozen by your powers, and then thawed because I love you. Plus, we're sisters so there's a blood link on top of those two, and I think maybe all of that put together means that your powers now see me as being an actual part of you. So they can't hurt me, but the negatives are also stronger when we're both upset, and maybe that's why we've both been losing weight."

"Maybe," Elsa agrees, and that's pretty much that in terms of conversation for the evening, because it's been an emotional one and they're both exhausted.

Anna's just glad to know that it's been a huge leap in the right direction – for both of them.

xXxXx

The next day is... wow. Anna doesn't even really have the words to describe how different it is after the way things have been for the past three weeks. Elsa comes in to wake her up early so they can go to breakfast together. During the mid-morning hours she says yes right away when Anna asks if she can see what she's working on, and takes as much time as she needs in order to explain when there's something Anna needs clarification on. At lunch she cracks a joke so out of the blue that Anna ends up spitting her juice halfway across the table, and then laughs so hard at Anna's incredulous, awed stare that she almost starts crying from it.

Elsa's afternoon is taken up by meetings, so Anna spends those hours alone. It's by choice, because although Elsa asks her if she want to join, Anna knows herself well enough to realize that she'll probably end up bored and fidgeting, and that would thoroughly distract Elsa, who does kinda have a country to run. So Anna hides in a corner of the library where only Gerda and sometimes Kai has ever been able to find her, and takes care of some paperwork of her own. Nothing interesting – paperwork rarely is – but it's enough to make her feel like she's getting back to pulling at least part of her own weight after pretty much going to pieces for almost a month.

The fact that she  _can_  do that matters to her, even if most of the nobles and counselors (the two groups tend to overlap) seem to think that all she does is lounge around all day.

She's trying to figure out if she needs to have more than one serious talk with Elsa, though, because the pile of papers she has to go through is a lot smaller than it should be, which presumably means that her dear sister has been picking up Anna's slack. That... okay, she definitely appreciates it, but she also really wants Elsa to worry more about herself than she is.

Either way, she ends up finishing her paperwork a lot sooner than anticipated, and the page almost misses her because she's actually left the library when he comes running down the hall. He's winded and red in the face, and Anna bids the boy to sit in a chair and collect himself while she studies the message he brought her. It's not much – a single square of thin parchment covered in the tiniest, legible handwriting possible - but it's still full of information from Kristoff about a sudden, freak flooding of a town in the eastern lowlands due to early, heavy fall rains.

 _No one is badly hurt_ , he promises,  _but they need help to rebuild before winter hits, or they **will**  be hurting_, and Anna finds some clean parchment and a quill and pens out two short messages; one for the boy to give to Elsa with her express permission to interrupt whatever the queen is doing, and another for him to take to the kitchens once the former is done, purely because he has the halfway proud, halfway uncertain look of someone who's done the right thing without direction from anyone else, and that should come with a reward.

When his rapid footsteps are echoing in the hallway outside, Anna starts finding information that she fortunately knows the location of due to all the late night hours she spent in here while things were bad. She finds two maps, first, and spreads them out on a wide table before leaning over them. The largest is the most recent one there is of Arendelle in its entirety, and the other, smaller one is a limited, detailed one only of the eastern lowlands. That – along with the short notes from Kristoff – lets her figure out which town he's talking about, and the name he gives combined with the location she determines has her heartbeat picking up in alarm and her hands trembling when she digs out a thick charter and sets it down on the same table with a thump.

It's only been maybe ten minutes when Elsa arrives, but she still has to physically grab Anna by the shoulder to draw her out of her focused cross-referencing between books and charters and rolls of parchment filled with harvest counts. Unfortunately, that also ends up startling her.

"Yow!" Anna grabs her forehead when she ends up smacking herself with the edge of fairly heavy tome, and whirls in place to meet equally startled blue eyes. "Oh. Hi." She grins sheepishly, and rolls her eyes a little when her hand drops from the sore spot and is immediately replaced by Elsa's. "I'm fine," she insists a touch wryly, but she doesn't move away because Elsa's hand is cooler than her own and actually feels pretty nice. "No concussions, I promise."

"And I suppose you know intimately what one of those feels like?" is the dry counter.

Anna just stares at her. "Well... yeah," she says, as if that much should be obvious, and Elsa sort of pauses in her examination and then chuckles when she continues, so maybe it is.

"You'll survive, Your Highness," she decrees in a proper, regal fashion a few moments later, and when she kisses the sore spot lightly she must be doing something with her magic, because the pleasant chill lingers even when she moves back. "Now, what's this about a flood?" she questions, and holy crap Anna completely forgot about that.

"Right. Here," she says, and forces her thoughts into order as she closes one hand around her sisters elbow and tugs her closer to the table. And she explains as concisely as she can while Elsa listens, with her index finger drawing invisible lines on both maps and her hands leafing to pages in the books she's dug out. She starts out worrying that maybe she's being overly cautious or there's something she's missing, but the longer she talks, the deeper Elsa's frown becomes and the more the blonde head nods.

"You're right," Elsa says simply when Anna finally runs out of information and they're both leaning on the table, shoulder to shoulder. "If Midheim's fields were destroyed like Kristoff says, we have a much bigger issue if they've been supplying almost ten percent of our winter grain. Morten!" The last part is considerably louder and thankfully not aimed towards Anna's ear, but it does draw in a middle-aged man whom Elsa spends a few minutes speaking to by the doorway before returning to Anna's side. "I've sent for my advisers," she explains, and runs a hand through her windswept bangs with a slow exhale. "If we move fast, we can have a supply train on its way there by nightfall."

"Workers, tools, clothing," Anna ticks off on her fingers, and then goes hunting for some more parchment because making a list might be an idea.

"Seeds for next year?" Elsa muses, and then shakes her head. "No, that much can wait for later. Food, though."

"Definitely," Anna agrees, and settles herself in a sofa with one knee over the other and a small, wooden writing rest beneath the parchment in her lap. "No one's gonna be able to work without being fed. We've got a good deal of surplus stored here. It's marked for trade, but..."

"To hell with trade," her sister decides in an unusually firm voice. And that's pretty much that, because even with elected counselors and politicians, Elsa's word is – ultimately – law. Even if she's scowling like a petulant child when she seats herself on the sofa as well, and is folding her arms with such a remarkable, crossly adorable air that it's all Anna can do not to pinch her cheeks. "What?"

Whoops, busted. "Nothing." Anna shakes her head and focuses on the parchment in her lap as she starts to write. "So overall, we need to send workers, food, clothing for all sizes and ages – maybe just plain cloth would be an idea, too-"

"Anna."

"- needles, thread- wow, these people are pretty much gonna need  _everything_ , aren't they? We should probably just send as much as possible and then just have anything they don't need sh-"

" _Anna."_

"- ipped back later, huh? Spades and shovels are gonna be a must with all that mud, but we don't need to send wood or anything because they're literally right next to a forest and-"

A cool hand on her exposed shoulder, and warm breath around the low words by her ear. "Don't make me find out if you're still as ticklish now as you were when we were children."

"- you scowl like a little kid and it's totally cute!"

Dead, absolute, not-even-breathing silence, and  _wow_ , Anna's blushing so hard that she can feel her ears burning. A glance out of the corner of her eye tells her that at least Elsa isn't faring any better, though which one of them looks more surprised is probably a toss-up.

"Oh," Elsa finally says, or maybe it's more correct to say that she  _breathes_  it, and then clears her throat. "Well, thank you... I guess?"

"Don't mention it," Anna mumbles, and then drops her face into her hands with a groan. "Really. Ever.  _Where_  are your advisers?!" Seriously – they could have gotten here a thousand times by now, and saved her twice as much mortification.

And Elsa is... she just laughs in the gentlest way possible. Then there's a touch to the back of Anna's neck, and a tug has her temple resting against a smooth, pale shoulder while cool lips are pressing a warm kiss to the top of her head.

"I think," that soft voice murmurs into her hair. "That you might be the most precious thing in my life. Thank you."

"Anytime," Anna sighs, and adjusts her legs and general positioning until she can stay where she is, if only sit a bit more upright. Resting against Elsa  _is_  pretty darn comfy, and if you can't beat it, embrace it. "So. Spades, shovels... what else?"

"Livestock?" Elsa hazards, and peers at the growing list with a small, thoughtful frown. "Did Kristoff mention anything about them having or losing any?"

"Going from memory, I wanna say he didn't, but..." She snatches up the tiny missive and studies it, then turns it over with a twist of her fingers. "No, not a peep. Though he says to thank you for Balder, whatever that means."

"Whomever," is the mild correction, with Elsa's mostly exposed left arm slipping easily around her shoulders and featherlight fingertips coming to rest just above her elbow. "Balder is a bird, or more specifically a carrier pigeon. He probably brought the message."

"Hm." Anna  _is_  listening, but she's admittedly a little distracted at the moment, and by several things. One is the idle satisfaction at apparently  _not_  having forgotten that this particular town has a pigeon post, while another is trying to recall what she's read about what sort of livestock is reared there. The latter is made tricky by the part of her mind that's just enjoying the closeness and marveling at how this really doesn't feel like work at all at the moment, and when she turns her head towards Elsa, she's also reminded of what happened the last time they sat like this on a sofa, because that was in the portrait room.

So by all rights, she should be feeling nervous right now, shouldn't she? Kind of twitchy, uncomfortably tense, maybe even a little frightened?

"Well, we can send horses and oxen easily enough," she decides, and twists a little in her seat to better see the thick tome Elsa's tugged over and is now holding in her own lap. "I think they had... yeah, goats." She taps at a line with the feathered end of her quill. "Those should be fine, though. They should've been on pastures much higher up."

"Cows, then?" A long finger is tracing the letters faster than Anna can read them, and in response to her own shifting, Elsa's arm moves until it's settling more comfortably around her back with its hand resting lightly on her waist. "They rear them for dairy, so those would probably have been in the impact zone, sadly."

"Mm, maybe not," Anna argues gently. "They milk the goats, too, and it'd be pretty inefficient to have to carry all those buckets if they were too far away to be walked back from pasture every day. I'm guessing they have some high meadows nearb- where's the map?" A cool wind deposits it neatly over the book in Elsa's lap, and she chuckles. "You do come in handy, don't you?"

"I try," Elsa notes airily, and they're close enough to be sharing breath when Anna looks up and they smirk at each other.

And no, Anna isn't nervous at all.

xXxXx

"The  _nerve_  of that man!" Elsa hisses some time later, when the session that ended up taking the entire evening is finally over and they're walking together to the queen's chambers to sit down for a small meal so late that it could officially count as a midnight snack.

It's been a long –  _really_  long – but fruitful night. Numbers have been calculated in regards to covering for the potential loss of crops, the supply train left just after sunset, and there are preparations being made to send out another one once they have more information; information that Elsa supposes they'll get in a few days' time, since there's probably a rider heading here regardless of carrier pigeons. Birds can only carry so much, after all.

Elsa, however, was remarkably quiet during the entire session, and deferred almost wordlessly to Anna on pretty much anything, much to the surprise – and at times consternation – of her advisers. One man in particular had obvious issues with taking orders from anyone but the queen, and while Elsa had remained silent for as long as Anna was able to take part in the veiled, verbal jousting without growing angry herself – had, in fact, watched with a growing look of pride in her eyes - she had eventually stepped in. And  _how_.

" _You are an official of the Kingdom of Arendelle, and elected as such by your peers," Elsa tells the man very softly – no more than that is needed, as the entire room has quieted in response to her even rising, let alone her standing at Anna's side with one hand at the small of her sister's back. "For that reason, I cannot eject you from office without proof of gross negligence. But hear me now, good sir; if you ever speak again in such a manner **to**  or  **of**  your princess, the one who brought this emergency to my attention, the one who has been guiding every last one of you all evening, the one who – unlike you, apparently – is simply trying to do her God-given duty of protecting our people and the one who is next in line to the **throne of our nation** , you had better find a way to eject  **yourself**. Are we perfectly clear on that?"_

_Absolute, almost terrified silence; one that lasts for several moments, but is sharply broken when Elsa's hand impacts the planning table with a resounding bang that makes everyone in the room jump (aside from Anna, who feels the shifting tension of it coming) and sends spiky crystals spreading over the surface._

" _I said: Are we **clear** , Counselor?"_

" _Y-yes, My Queen!"_

_And that – with Anna's touch to Elsa's wrist and the glittering ice instantly fading - is that._

"The sheer, unadulterated  _nerve!"_   Elsa repeats now, and the last word is punctuated by a brisk snap of cold wind that rushes down the hall and sets the queen's icy train to billowing behind her. While that's certainly a handy indicator, Anna doesn't really need it to know that her sister is angry. That much is obvious in the frosty sharpness of those blue eyes, in the stiff set of her bare shoulders above the edges of her bodice, in the long, purposeful strides, the haughty lift of her chin, and of course the small flurries whirling in the air behind her as she walks.

But Elsa's simply too beautiful to look truly frightening; even when she's practically fuming with indignation and quite literally frosting at the edges. At least to Anna, who really has to find a way to wipe this dumb little grin off of her face before she ends up aww'ing all over the place, but she's tired and totally flattered so it's kind of hard. Besides, Elsa still scowls like a little kid, and the sight's just entirely too adorable.

"Well, you took care of it," she muses, and folds her hands behind her back as she tries not to laugh in remembrance. Odd, how she can recognize the need to not rely on others and still feel so warmly, wonderfully, fiercely protected at Elsa's actions. "Sent him running off with his tail between his legs, near as I could tell."

"Hrmph." Elsa turns up her nose. "It's not as if he has anything else hanging there, to take up the space," she reasons acerbically, and Anna nearly trips over her own feet in sheer shock. And yeah, okay, she's gawking, because it's really not like Elsa to be that crude, and the fact that she even said it is an even better indicator of exactly how furious she is.

That it's all in her behalf is absolutely endearing, and Anna needs to hug her. As in, right now. So she does, and some part of her just  _melts_  when she feels the anger immediately leave Elsa's body in response to Anna's arms slipping around her shoulders, and hears the soft sigh when slim arms wrap around her own waist.

"You definitely got Papa's temper," she teases, and smiles when she feels the laugh more than she hears it.

"I suppose I did," Elsa admits, and moves back enough that she can place a kiss to Anna's forehead. "Fortunately,  _you_  inherited Mama's calming influence." She stays where she is for a moment, and there's the light touch of gentle fingers flitting over the skin below Anna's hairline before she smiles. "No bruising," she notes approvingly.

"Magic lips," Anna returns with a wink, and then promptly closes her eyes and gives herself a sound, mental kick in the rear when Elsa stiffens in her arms. Stupid, stupid,  _stupid._ "God... sorry."

"It's fine," is the reply, but there's an uncomfortable tightness in Elsa's voice even if she's smiling. "We probably need to talk about that anyway," she sighs. Then she's extracting herself from Anna's arms, and not another word is said until they're seated in her chambers; each in their own wingback chair on opposite sides of a small, low table rather than on the same couch, and the ease between them has just become this big, huge  _thing_  that has Anna's appetite wandering off in annoyance and leaves her completely uninterested in the simple, but delectable-looking spread waiting for them.

"So." Elsa finishes pouring a cup of tea for herself, and then leans forward to set the pot down in front of Anna. She ends up lingering there for several heartbeats, with her gaze fixed on the porcelain lid and her fingers still wrapped around the handle. Finally, she sighs and settles back. "I'm sorry. I just... I have no idea where to even begin," she admits, with one elbow settling on the chair's armrest and a pale hand laying itself over her eyes in stark contrast to the red tint in her cheeks. She clears her throat and shifts a little until her chin is resting in the hand's palm instead, and the fingers of her other hand are tapping an unsteady beat against the opposite armrest. "I don't suppose I could ask you to... well, to ask questions, and we'll take it from there?"

"Are we negotiating terms?" Anna quips over the sounds of her filling her own cup, because  _God_ , she needs to lighten the tension in here before somebody chokes on it.

Thankfully, her comment draws a small smile from Elsa and makes the achingly tense shoulders relax, if only by a fraction. "If you want," she says. "Are you in agreement so far?"

Anna smiles, too, and settles back into her chair with her cup cradled in her hands. "As long as you don't mind me asking potentially stupid questions, sure," she replies with a shrug, and takes a moment to blow a soft breath over the rim of her cup before peering up at her sister. "Why?"

"That's always a good start," Elsa sighs, and turns her gaze to the cheerfully snapping fireplace. "The simple answer is that I wanted to, and thought you wanted to, as well." Her eyes drop to the floor, and her fingers curl around the end of one armrest and tighten. "It won't happen again, if you're worried about that."

"I'm not," Anna promises, and tries not to think about how surreal the whole situation is; the two of them calmly conversing about Elsa's want to kiss her, and over  _tea_ , of all things. It's all so frightfully civilized that she just knows she'll crack up laughing if she really thinks about it. So she doesn't. "You think I would've been as... physically affectionate with you as I have? If I didn't trust you?"

"No, I suppose not," her sister agrees quietly. Warmly. "Thank you, Anna. Your trust means more to me than you know, especially aft-"

"Elsa." She lets her voice grow unusually serious, because this is something she needs her to know in an odd, almost desperate way. "You locked yourself away for thirteen years. _Thirteen_   _years_ , Elsa, and primarily for  _my_  safety _._ " Her elbows settle on her knees as she leans forward, and the cup is deposited on its saucer before her hands fold loosely. "How on earth could I  _not_  trust you?" There's no reply other than the slow closing of perfect, blue eyes, but that's enough for Anna, so she simply drops her own gaze to her hands and spends a few moments twiddling her thumbs.

"So what's the complicated answer?" she then asks – mostly of the carpet under her feet – and hears the creak of springs as Elsa shifts. "Why?"

"Because-" Elsa starts, and then stops with a sigh as her head drops back against the chair. She stares up at the ceiling – again with her fingers drumming against the wooden armrests – and keeps drawing her lower lip between her teeth and then releasing it again as she seems to gather her thoughts. "Because you're... kind and sweet and always know how to find the bright side of things. Because you don't care about stations or fortunes, but about people. Because you have the warmest smile and most infectious laugh in this world. Because you aren't afraid to look stupid every now and then, or to make mistakes as long as you can learn something from them. Because when that boy brought you that message, you told our kitchens to supply him with food for his family for the next  _year_." She straightens, and there's a slow smile on her lips when their eyes meet. "Did you know that he has five younger siblings, or that his mother's a widow?"

"No," Anna mumbles. She knows that she's sounding very much like a shy child, but she can't help it. All of her energy right now is going to her efforts to re-route the furious rush of blood to her cheeks. "I didn't. I just wanted to-"

"Reward him for doing his job well," Elsa picks up, voice soft. "Make sure that he was taken care of, because out of the two of us, you know the most about how the poorest of our people live. Because you have the biggest heart on God's green earth, and you give and give and give of your love in whatever way you can when you see someone who needs it. Because you are quite possibly the purest soul alive, and an epitome of all that is good and right in the world."

"No pressure or anything, right?" Anna tries to joke, though her words are coming out around a thoroughly – albeit pleasantly - embarrassed croak, and she's pretty sure her ears are going to just fall right off if they keep burning like this.

"No," Elsa chuckles, and gives her a fond look. "No pressure. Never."

"Good to know," Anna mutters, and then clears her throat. "So that's why?"

Immediately, Elsa's lips shape an almost devilish smile, and those very blue eyes are glinting. "If you're waiting for me to stop finding reasons to admire you, you are going to be waiting for a very long time, dear sister."

And Anna squeaks, then coughs, then squeaks again, but at least the second time around she does manage to get a few words in there, too. "Yay, me?" she all but whimpers, and then immediately pouts because Elsa is laughing so hard that her entire body is shaking from it.

But, she decides with a slight smile, this is infinitely better than the stilted, clearly uncomfortable Elsa from a few moments ago. Even if it is happening at her expense.

"And there's another one," Elsa manages to get out as she winds down slowly, and wipes at her eyes with another chuckle. "No matter how uncomfortable or stressful the subject, you always manage to make everything better. Just looking at you is enough to lift my spirits."

Her ears are  _definitely_  going to burn themselves off of her skull, at this rate. "Jeez, Elsa; you almost make it sound like you're in love with me," she jokes, and then feels her stomach drop like a rock when her sister tenses bodily and goes ten shades paler than she already is, because  _wow_  she just jammed her foot so far down her own throat that her toes are wiggling in her stomach and  _what the hell can she say now?!_

"... oh," is what she ends up muttering, and her mind promptly throws up its figurative hands in total disgust at  _that_  brilliant comment. Christ, maybe she should take over for that one adviser of Elsa's, if he doesn't dare return. They certainly seem to share a talent for chewing on their own shoes.

"Yes." Elsa curls her fingers around her teacup and lifts it at long last. She doesn't drink from it; just holds it in front of her chest as if it's some kind of shield, and stares into its steaming contents instead of looking up. " _Oh_."

Anna has imagined a hundred possible ways in which talking about this subject could pan out. This, however, is one she never even considered.

Elsa is _in_ _love_  with her.  _In love_ , which is another kettle of fish entirely from being in lust or whatever. Wants and desires can pass, and do just that more often than not. But  _love_... love is kind of a big deal, and she isn't ashamed to admit that the idea is throwing her for a very hefty loop. In fact, it leaves her staring at her older sister as if she's never seen her before in her life.

Wow.

"Anna..." Elsa's choked voice finally pulls her from her stupor, and her face is so pale and drawn that it physically hurts to look at. "Please, for the love of God,  _say something_."

"I don't know what  _to_  say," she admits helplessly.

A beat, and Elsa's nodding and sucking her lips in and sinking back in her seat as if she'd like nothing more than to burrow right through it. "Well, at least you aren't running screaming from the room," she kids – or tries to, since it honestly falls flat. "God... I swear to you, I never meant for this to happen," she breathes, and rubs two fingers over her forehead with her eyes tightly shut. "I'm sorry. I know this can't be easy for you, b-"

"Whoa, whoa, hey!" Anna's out of her seat and around the table before the 'sorry' even finishes leaving Elsa's mouth, and she has the cup out of her sister's hands and enough space cleared that she can seat herself on the table in a matter of seconds. "Never," she demands, and clasps one of Elsa's hands in her own. "Never, ever,  _ever_  apologize for loving someone. Least of all me. Alright?"

That earns her a  _rather_  incredulous look, and it takes a few seconds before the older woman speaks again. "We  _are_  both aware of the fact that I'm  _in_  love with you, yes?" Anna nods, and the golden brows furrow. "And of the fact that this is inherently wrong?"

"Hey." She scowls jokingly, and then almost smiles when she wonders if she looks as young as Elsa when she does the same thing. "Love is  _never_  wrong," she intones, and frees one hand so she can jab a finger into her sister's midsection. "Ever. Got that?"

"You're going to make moving past this hard for me, aren't you?" Elsa wonders around a suddenly tremulous smile, and then covers her mouth with one hand as she tries and fails to suppress a hitching breath. "Oh, Anna... I'm so sorry."

" _Stop_   _apologizing_." Anna holds the hand in her own tighter even as she leans closer and brushes her sister's bangs back with gentle fingers, trying to will those blue eyes to open again. "You haven't done anything wrong. And if by me making this hard for you, you mean that I'm absolutely not going to love you one ounce less, then yes! You bet your royal ass I'm going to make this hard for you!" Elsa makes a noise that's somewhere between a laugh and a whimper, and Anna curses softly as she stands again; only to immediately perch on the armrest and pull her sister in until the blonde head is tucked under her own chin. "God, Elsa,  _please_  don't cry," she whispers into the fair hair. "I hate seeing you hurt."

"You always hate seeing people hurt," Elsa chuckles wanly, with a warm rush of breath over Anna's collarbone. "Especially the ones that are sick to begin with."

And... she knows Elsa is at least halfway joking. She can hear it in her voice, but...

"Hey!" She's almost yelling this time, and is maybe pretty rough when she grasps Elsa's face in both hands and forces their eyes to meet. God only knows what her expression looks like, but those blue eyes are staring at her as if she suddenly sprouted horns. "You are  _not_  sick. Don't  _ever_  say that again."

Elsa is blinking at her; wide-eyed and looking pretty damn startled, but still starting to frown. "Anna, you're my  _sist_ -"

"Fuck. That," Anna cuts her off, and figures that if she had hackles they would be standing on end right now, because she can practically  _feel_  herself bristling. "If you're in love with me,  _I_  should be the one to decide if that's 'sick' or not, and I damn well say that it  _isn't_. Sick love is when you hurt people, or take advantage of them or-" She sighs, and feels herself deflate. "- or trick people into thinking that you love them," she finishes with a mumble, and eases her grip on her sister's face before brushing her thumbs over Elsa's cheeks in silent apology. "Those things are sick, but they can't even be  _called_  love. You feel what you feel, and you've never forced it on me, Elsa. There is  _nothing_  sick in that. Nothing."

"In the portr-"

Anna shakes her head, and Elsa falls silent. "In the portrait room, you thought I  _wanted_  you to kiss me," she counters softly. "The second you knew you were wrong, that was that, and you haven't laid a finger on me since. Correct?" She waits for the fair head to nod, and runs her fingers through the soft bangs to settle them somewhat. "That's valuing what  _I need_ more than what  _you want_ , Elsa. And  _that-_ " she decides, and drops a light kiss to a faintly freckled nose. "- is love. The real kind."

And Elsa is staring at her; all wide, gemstone-blue eyes with a look in them that's both breathless and open and aching and completely overflowing with gratitude and love. Then she makes this soft, helpless little sound and presses back into Anna's arms, and there are slim arms winding tightly around her waist and silent, hitching breaths against the skin over her clavicle.

"It's gonna be okay, Elsa," Anna promises, and kisses the top of her sister's head while she just rocks her. Holds her. Loves her. "It's gonna be okay. We'll figure it out."

xXxXx

"Are we sure  _I'm_  the one who inherited Papa's temper?" Elsa wonders some time later, when the candles have burned themselves out and the only source of light in the room is the gently snapping fire.

"We're sure," Anna chuckles, and gives the soft hair under her fingers a small ruffle. It's a good thing that the wingback chairs in Elsa's chambers are massive, since this makes them remarkably comfortable even when occupied by two people at a time. Even now, when she herself is sitting (lying) sideways with her legs over one armrest and her head and back against the opposite wing, with Elsa's entire body canting onto one hip so her legs can slip out behind-and-under Anna's while her head rests on Anna's chest. "Papa came down like a ton of bricks on anyone who spoke ill about the people he loved. Mama flew off the handle when the people she loved spoke ill about  _themselves_. Sound familiar?"

A wry snort, and the arm that Elsa's slung over her waist tightens its hold briefly. "Vaguely, yes."

Anna rolls her eyes. "'Vaguely', she says," she mutters, and has to really work at holding back a smile when she feels Elsa chuckle; both because Elsa's laugh is infectious, and because  _making_  her laugh was precisely what she wanted to accomplish. "'Vaguely' – I ask you." She's aware that the blonde head has tilted back to watch her, cast half in shadow by the firelight, but doesn't really know how to interpret the look in those eyes when she meets them. "What?"

There's a few more seconds of that steady, unreadable gaze – enough of them that Anna feels her face start to heat up – but Elsa eventually settles her head back the way it was and closes her eyes entirely. "You just- you do things sometimes," she riddles, and then yawns.

"That's clear as mud, sis. Thanks," Anna grumps, and then almost bites her lip through to hold back the blurt when a single finger pokes her side in reproach.

"Good to know that you  _are_  still ticklish," Elsa notes sleepily, and Anna glowers into the fire but doesn't stop the slow stroking of her hand over the pale hair. "And if you really want to know..." A pause, and when there's no negation, a sigh. "I meant that you do things that- that make me want to kiss you."

"And I just did one of them?" Anna questions, and feels Elsa's head nod against the top of her chest. "Oops. Sorry."

That makes the blonde head lift, and she's treated to a remarkably sharp, exhausted glare from those ice-blue eyes. "If I can't apologize for being in love with you, you can't apologize for doing the things that made me fall," Elsa commands, because there really is no other word for it. "Queen's orders."

Anna's pretty sure she's bright red in the face again, but she's also giggling and bringing up one hand in a pseudo-salute, because that was probably one of the cutest things she's ever seen. "Yes, Ma'am." Pause, and a look at Elsa's face. "I just did another one, didn't I?"

"Uh-huh." Elsa settles back down with a pat to her side and another yawn. "Don't worry 'bout it," she mumbles. "Pretty much all y'gotta do is breathe, anyway."

Then she's out, and Anna's left to the crackling of the fire, the gentle sensation of Elsa's ribs moving against her side, and the oddly breathless feeling in her own chest.


	3. The Stumble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings:  
> Icest, cheating through kissing, biting, breakup, general feels. Things get a little bit steamy in here, too.

Everything becomes so much easier from that point on. Elsa has no more secrets – no more things to hide that she fears will turn Anna away from her, and the change is staggering. She's definitely still Elsa – the elder sister, the queen, the quiet one of the two of them - but there's a peace in her eyes now that Anna hasn't seen since they were very young. There's a lightness in the way she carries herself and something in her smile that makes it easier to earn, even when she's sitting on her throne in her gown and train and crown with Anna standing at her side when the rider from Midheim arrives; a few days later, just as Elsa predicted, and a day and a half into a particularly effusive rainstorm, courtesy of the weather gods.

The rider is really no more than a wiry girl. She looks to be a few years younger than Anna, and is filthy enough that it doesn't look like she's stopped for anything on the way other than maybe a change of horses. She also seems embarrassed about her appearance, but when she goes to apologize, Elsa stops her entirely.

"Please, don't worry about a little mud. You aren't here to take part in a ball, but because people need help. Now, tell us what you know."

And with a smile – because it's really more like a half-dozen  _pounds_  of mud and the queen doesn't mind - the girl does just that. While she talks, Anna watches and listens and thinks, and ends up bending down to whisper something in her sister's ear that earns her another one of those looks.

Apparently Elsa wasn't kidding about Anna needing to do little more than breathe for her to want to kiss her, because those looks are becoming very common now that Elsa's no longer bothering to hide them. Sometimes it's a little impractical; like right now, in the throne room on official business and in front of a roughly 15-year old girl. Seeing those eyes on her in that way never fails to make Anna blush, so she gives Elsa a poke in the shoulder in exchange for a sheepish smile, and then wanders off to find Gerda with a smile of her own and a fond shake of her head.

Gerda, of course, is as efficient as ever in getting an unused bedroom set up for the girl – complete with a tub of steaming water and a fresh set of clothes, because judging by the bulging of the bag she was carrying over one shoulder it's gonna take some time for Elsa and the council to go over what she's brought with her, and she might as well get clean and sleep in the meantime. That done, Anna has runners sent out into the city to find the councilors and tell them to convene in the castle immediately, while a few others take off for the stables, the store house and the barracks respectively, in order to tell everyone to start preparing for another supply train and a small contingent of guards to be sent out.

It's shortly after that when she sees Elsa walking down the hall with a few scrolls under one arm; one of which her sister fishes out and offers to her when Anna catches up. She never even looked over her shoulder to see who was approaching, so Anna's a little surprised to unroll the parchment and find that yes, she  _is_  the intended recipient, because this is from Kristoff.

"How'd you know it was me?" she questions when they turn into the queen's study.

"I should hope that I can recognize your footsteps by now," is the amused response, and when Anna oh's and then rolls her eyes at herself, she catches another one of those looks from the corner of her eye.

There really is a lot of them; not that Anna minds. At first, she was sort of expecting to feel uncomfortable, but she's happily finding that this isn't the case, and guesses that it's probably because Elsa is so respectful that it borders on knightly. Yes, Anna gets a bunch of those 'I could kiss you right now' glances, but it never goes beyond that. Or at least when it  _does_ , the kiss lands on her forehead or cheek, which is perfectly fine.

Right now it hits her forehead, and she just hums a little and pulls Elsa into a hug that lasts until they're swaying gently with hands rubbing her back and the soft sound of Elsa's voice humming in her ear. It's simple and easy and warm, and now Anna can feel her own lips quirking because she's thinking of Olaf.

"Hi! I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs," Elsa murmurs next to her temple as if on cue, and Anna starts snickering into her shoulder because they're just so in synch these days that it's almost frightening. "Where is he, come to think of it? I haven't seen him all day."

"He said something about visiting Marshmallow yesterday," Anna explains as they untangle themselves. "He's worried that he'll get lonely up there alone, and says it's his job to make sure he's okay since he's his-" A thought, and she can feel her eyes widening. "-older brother. Oh, my God." There must be something that sounds like alarm in her voice, because Elsa's watching her sort of anxiously. "Elsa... you have  _sons_. And they're  _snowmen_."

Wide, blue eyes, along with a flash of white teeth as Elsa's jaw practically unhinges. "Goodness," she murmurs after a few seconds and a lot of blinking, and leans on her desk with one hand while the other briefly covers her mouth. Then she quirks an eyebrow. "Would that make Olaf the next in line to the throne, instead of you?"

"Heheheheh..." Anna chortles, and falls onto the wide sofa with a plop. "King Olaf the First – long may he R-A-I-N." A wad of hastily conjured snow hits her in the face, but she manages to bat the next one away – or at least smash it into powder – with the scroll case in her hand, which she then wags at her smirking sister. "Watch it, queenie," she warns as she wipes herself free of snow, and smiles when Elsa chuckles. "But really, Elsa - holy crap, you're a snowman's  _mom_."

Elsa just  _looks_  at her. "Actually, we probably both are," she corrects, with a twitch at the corner of her mouth as if she's really trying not to laugh. "Neither of them would exist without you, after all."

"Huh." Anna considers that, and folds her hands behind her head as she peers thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "Does that make me the father?"

Not much useful gets done after that comment.

xXxXx

_Things are so, so much better now. I don't think I've ever been happier in my life._

That's the last line in the letter Anna pens out to send to Kristoff, and hands over to one of the guards accompanying the second supply train heading to Midheim. There are other things she wants to tell him, but writing down a fact as sensitive as the queen being in love with her younger sister really isn't something she feels right about doing. Especially not when the parchment she writes it on is going out of her sight and could conceivably be snatched up by anyone.

It's not that Anna is bothered or ashamed by the knowledge. In fact, she finds the whole thing more flattering than anything else – it's  _Elsa_ , who could literally have  _anyone_  – but... She would kind of like a shoulder to lean on about this whole thing – one that isn't her sister's, because while Elsa certainly doesn't seem sad in the slightest (it hasn't snowed at all since the first time they really spoke again), Anna still worries that she's not handling this correctly. Is it good or bad that they're as affectionate as they are? Is she leading Elsa on in some way when she holds her or kisses her cheek? She hopes not, because they're closer now than they've ever been, and she really doesn't want to lose that. If, however, the choice stood between hurting herself now or hurting Elsa at some unknown point in the future, Anna knows what she would choose. Still, she'd really like to talk this whole thing over with someone who can give an outside perspective; if only so she can stop worrying over what's hopefully nothing.

So it kind of sucks that Kristoff isn't coming back when he said he would, but since the reason is that he wants to stay in Midheim and help with the rebuild, she's not going to fault him for it. If she'd been there herself, she would've done the same thing.

"Are you sure you don't want to go with them?"

The question is accompanied by familiar hands settling on her shoulders, and Anna turns her head to see Elsa standing halfway behind her with her eyes on the train of carts and horses and people leaving the city; easily done from their vantage point on the castle's largest balcony.

"I'm sure." Anna covers one of the hands with her own, and smiles. "I mean, I miss him, but Kristoff and I aren't really the constantly-together kind of thing, y'know?" True, and a good thing, considering that Kristoff's chosen profession will probably always see him traveling a lot. "Besides, my place is here."

"Anna." Now Elsa's frowning at her in an unusually stern, serious way. "Your place is wherever you want it to be."

Anna just turns around and hugs her because she  _has to_ , and God, if Elsa keeps being this sweet, she thinks she may just swoon. "Yes, My Queen," she then teases, but also gives Elsa's cheek a kiss in thanks. "Then let me rephrase it: I  _want_  to be here. With you. Okay?"

Elsa's reaction is a smile; one Anna can't remember seeing before. It's small and gentle, but puts this almost ethereal sort of light in her eyes that sparkles even more when she laughs a little. "If I ever say no to  _that_ , you can call the doctors to treat me for a mental condition."

"Duly noted," Anna grins, and then hugs her again.

xXxXx

There's an inherent warmth in being around someone who loves you in all the ways that one human being can love another, Anna decides. It's physical and yet somehow not, because the feeling  _is_  an emotional one, but it also leaves her entire body feeling pleasantly warm and a good deal lazier than she really should be. But Elsa isn't complaining, and since she's the one whose shoulder is currently on pillow duty, Anna's quite content to take her cues from her.

"The elder was named Tity, and the younger Mortillo," Elsa's voice is saying; sounding softly over the faint birdsong from outside, and the low hiss of her finger turning the pages. "Tity was..." And here she stops, and chuckles.

"What?" Anna wonders, and sounds like she's only halfway awake. Which is true, but Elsa's shoulder is comfy and the sunlight streaming through the window behind them is very sleep-inducing.

"Tity was much handsomer than his brother," is Elsa's response. "But the king and queen could not endure him, for he would let all the children who came to play with him have a share of every thing that was given him." A pause and the light press of lips to Anna's head. "Does that sound familiar,  _Tity?"_

She groans softly at that, and presses her face into her sister's shoulder. "You make me sound like some sort of... paragon of humanity," she murmurs in embarrassment. "You really don't have to, you know."

"No," Elsa agrees, and there's the pleasant feeling of cool fingers flitting through her hair. "I don't  _have_  to."

It's such a simple answer with a much deeper meaning, and it's one of many since the night where she discovered Elsa's true feelings for her. Every answer like that seems to do the same thing to Anna; it leaves her a little embarrassed and a little breathless, uncommonly shy and thoroughly unable to come up with a single thing to say. So she just curls into Elsa a little bit tighter, until she can hear the steady beat of her sister's heart under her ear, and the way her voice echoes subtly in her chest.

"What signifies my being a prince, said he, when I am not at liberty to do any good?" Elsa's saying now, with her arm resting warmly on Anna's back and her hand stroking her head. "The only pleasure in being great, is being able and willing to relieve the distressed."

And Anna's really trying to not think about the day when Elsa finally moves on from her, because the thought of losing her love sort of hurts. A lot.

But that's selfish, and she knows it.

xXxXx

By the time summer starts to turn into autumn, Anna is officially so confused that she scarcely knows which leg to stand on. Elsa is so comfortable around her that she isn't hiding anything anymore, and every time Anna gets a glimpse of how much her sister truly, genuinely loves her, the most childish, lonely part of her heart wants more and more to keep that love  _on_  her – all to herself – and the sheer guilt of even being able to feel that way is eating at her. Especially when Elsa loves her as selflessly as she does.

Elsa loves her enough to give Balder the carrier pigeon to Kristoff, so that he (Balder) can carry short missives back and forth when Anna and Kristoff are separated for any length of time; so Anna won't have to miss the man who holds the position in her life that Elsa wants to hold. She loves her enough to be perfectly content with Anna  _accepting_  her feelings, even if she doesn't return them. Enough to lock herself away from everyone and subject herself to years and years of near-total isolation, just to keep Anna safe. Enough to ensure – whenever a messenger arrives from Midheim – that any scroll from Kristoff to Anna is taken to her immediately, more often than not by her own hands.

Enough to always,  _always_  put Anna's happiness first - well above her own – no matter how much it must hurt her at times, and all Anna can do in return is treat Elsa's affection like a spoiled child would a box of chocolates.

Damn it. Anna stops pacing to thump her forehead against the window in her bedroom, and sighs. She never knew that she was this selfish, and it's a really low feeling to repay that kind of selflessness with greed. Low, and a little humiliating if she's honest with herself (which she generally tries to be), because she thought that she was better than this; that she was above wanting to hoard Elsa's love all to herself, because that is  _not_  fair to Elsa. Not fair at all; unless Anna could actually return that love fully.

And, well... maybe she's starting to? Maybe that's what all this is even about? She really doesn't know.

Her fingers curl against the windowsill, and her brow furrows as she peers out at the slowly yellowing leaves of the forest outside the city. It isn't the first time the thought has struck her, but it  _is_  the first time that she's actually sort of grabbed onto it and held it fast long enough to turn it over in her head, so she does that now and tries to do it as simply as possible. She tries to eliminate what it would mean to Kristoff and what it might mean to Elsa; tries to narrow her focus until she's only thinking about whether or not  _she_  could possibly love her sister romantically.

And she fails completely, much to her own annoyance. Probably because she doesn't really have anything to draw on other than the breathlessness Elsa can cause in her, which really isn't enough to base any sort of decision on, even if it is at least a halfway positive sign. The kiss in the portrait room, she considers as she opens the window and leans out of it to inhale the sweet, evening air... well,  _that_  might have afforded her some information. If she hadn't been so shocked by it that she just sort of blanked out emotionally, that is.

Well, crud. Anna sighs, and bends enough that she can settle her head in her hands and just show the outside world a good sulk; it's not like anyone can actually see her face in detail when she's up this high, anyway. Certainly not with the sun setting and the shadows extending, and the lamps in the streets and windows far below and beyond the bridge being lit.

It's a beautiful view, but Anna isn't really seeing any of it. Instead, her gaze is turned inwards, and her fingertips tapping a random beat against her own cheeks while her thoughts turn and turn and turn again, because how is she going to figure this out? There just isn't enough data available to her, and the only way of collecting more that she can think of would be... She blinks, and then draws in a slow breath.

… would be to kiss Elsa, which... wow, just the thought is enough to make her stomach lock up and she can't really tell if it's from fear or nerves or maybe anticipation. Maybe all three. Maybe something else entirely. And it shouldn't even be an option but she can't think of anything else that  _is,_  because she's honestly getting kind of desperate to figure out what's going on with her and can't really tell up from down in that way. So she ends up in front of the door to Elsa's chambers after a few minutes that feel like another thirteen years, with her heart up so high in her throat (and somehow pounding against her ribs at the same time) that she can't even vocally announce herself.

Instead, she enters the queen's chambers silently, and closes the door behind her with the tiniest of sounds. A dozen slow, near-soundless steps – since she doesn't see her sister in the chamber immediately after entering – carry her over to the next doorway, which leads to the actual bedroom, and that's where she sees Elsa. And now Anna sort of feels like a bit of a heel, for one because Elsa's clearly getting ready for bed (she's sitting by her vanity clad in no more than a knee-length robe and is busy undoing her braid), and for another because she herself stands there for several moments and just  _watches_.

Because... well, she's never noticed Elsa like this before. Or maybe she has, but she hasn't noticed herself noticing. Or maybe she really just hasn't, and the only reason she's noticing her now is because she's so nervous that she can barely hear anything over the sound of her own, roaring heartbeat. Either way, she's noticing. She's noticing everything from the perfect silhouette of Elsa's face in the golden lamplight to the folds and dips in the shimmering, violet robe that encircles her body. She's noticing the gentle flex in the silk-covered shoulders when Elsa brings her hands up and back to run her fingers through her loosened hair, the long, slow curve of her calves and ankles and how the perfect, pale skin contrasts against the deep, warm color of the floorboards.

And yeah, she's definitely staring and she needs to knock it off because it's getting creepy.

Anna needs to be calm about this, and she knows that, but that's  _so_  much easier said than done. Right now she's justtrying to find a posture that doesn't scream to the world how nervous she is. She leans against the doorframe on one shoulder. Then she folds her hands behind her, and then in front of her. Then she stands up normally and folds her arms over her front. Then she tucks her hair behind her ear even though there's not anything loose  _to_  tuck back. Then she tells herself to get a grip because it's  _just Elsa_ , and opens her mouth to speak.

She ends up squeaking, and Elsa's chair echoes her when her sister jumps and wide, blue eyes stare at her in shock and  _goddammit_  can she ever  _not_  totally embarrass herself in front of Elsa?

"Anna," Elsa sighs, and gives her a crooked, little grin while bringing one hand to her chest. "You startled me." Then, almost immediately, her eyes narrow, and she spends all of a half-second studying Anna intently before her mouth sets in a firm line. "What's wrong?"

 _'What's wrong'_. Not ' _is something the matter'_  or ' _are you alright'_. Direct and to the point, a clear sign of how much Elsa trusts her, and Anna really hopes that she can find the right way to go about this, because there are so many ways in which she could end up hurting her.

"Anna?" Those blue eyes are peering at her in obvious concern now, and when Anna looks up from where she's been watching her own hands clench, the same eyes widen in shock and she realizes that she actually has tears in her eyes. Immediately, Elsa starts to rise, and Anna feels her heart leap into her throat.

"No!" she all but cries, and when she takes an inadvertent, instinctive step back, there's a look of such raw pain spreading over Elsa's face that she immediately curses herself. "No... Elsa, I promise that wasn't what I-" Anna scrubs a hand over her own face and groans. "God, I'm messing this up so badly," she whispers, and then raises her voice a little again. "I'm not afraid of you," she promises, and can see some of the tension leave the skin around her sister's eyes when she manages to keep her voice firm. "I never was, and I never will be. Just... stay where you are for now, okay? I- I don't think I can say what I want to if you're hugging me," is what she says.

'I'll probably end up chickening out if you do', is what she means. 'And I really don't want to do that.'

Elsa's throat bobs in a hard swallow, but she nods once and stiffly seats herself again; knees together, back straight, hands folded in her lap and neck bent almost demurely with her gaze firmly fixed on the wooden vanity in front of her. A perfect posture for perfect discomfort, and Anna has to close her eyes briefly just to shut out some of the guilt she's feeling and collect herself before taking a deep breath.

"Your powers don't bother me," she starts out reaffirming, because maybe getting that out of the way first will help both Elsa relax and Anna talk. "It doesn't bother me that you're in love with me, either, sisters or not. It's just- I'm selfish and greedy and really, really confused right now, Elsa. And- and I need you to help me."

Elsa's shoulders are visibly tense – almost pulled up to her ears - but they finally slump as she sighs and rests her forehead in the palm of her own hand. "Help you how?" she asks, and her voice is almost painfully even.

"Kiss me," Anna pleads, because she really needs to just  _say it_  before she chokes on it.

She doesn't look away when Elsa's head snaps back up and she's under the full weight of those very blue eyes for long, silent, searching moments. She watches without faltering as Elsa finally, slowly unfurls herself from her seat and comes closer with no more sound than the faint swish of silk against skin as the violet fabric settles around her, but  she does tremble when a gentle, cool hand lifts her chin (just like that day) and a thumb traces silkily over her lips (unlike that day). Her own hands settle a little unsteadily on the robe-clad waist as Elsa's gaze drops to her mouth, and Anna closes her eyes when she feels warm breathing against her lips. She tries (and fails) to keep her own from coming in short, nervous puffs when her sister leans closer, closer,  _closer_ , until Anna can taste the minty tea on her breath and smell the sage from her clothing and the honey from her soap.

But the kiss never comes, and her eyes flutter open when a forehead instead comes to rest against her own. Elsa is so very close, with her eyes shut and her brow tense. She can feel the thumb tugging her lower lip down gently and then releasing it, and yet again, Anna  _doesn't understand_  and she's really getting tired of that.

"No." Elsa's voice is hoarse, and she pulls back like it physically hurts her to do so, shaking her head and dropping her hand to Anna's shoulder. "I- no."

"B-" Anna was nervous about asking Elsa to kiss her again, and even sort of frightened of Elsa actually doing so. She wasn't expecting, however, to feel  _rejected_  and even  _disappointed_ at her refusal. "Wh- you don't want-" To? Me? She doesn't know how to finish the question or even really what she wants to ask, but she's spared from more stuttering when Elsa touches her lips again; this time with her index- and middle fingers.

"I do," she says and watches her own digits for several seconds before lifting her gaze, and Anna's already racing heartbeat stutters at how intense her eyes are. "Very much. But I  _can't_  take advantage of you again. I  _won't_."

Anna is... well, she's trying to figure this out, but it's kind of hard with how the cool touch of Elsa's fingers is making her lips tingle, so she captures the hand in both of her own and cradles it between them. "Elsa, I'm  _asking_  you to kiss me," she whispers, because somehow the atmosphere doesn't let her do anything else. "How are you taking advantage?"

" _Why_  are you asking?" Elsa counters gently, with her thumb drawing light circles on the back of Anna's hand. "What are you confused about?"

There's something in her voice – in the look in her eyes – that once again makes it feel like Anna can't quite draw in enough oxygen. Some tone – some small light - that just makes her feel so pleasantly warm from the inside out that it's almost as if something is squeezing her heart. "Because-" She sighs, and has to close her eyes so looking into her sister's doesn't distract her. "Because I- when you say- do- I..." A soft groan, and Anna tries to line up her thoughts and feelings in a row rather than a jumbled pile. Maybe then they'll actually make sense to her.

"You make me feel things," she finally says, and manages to string a somewhat complete sentence together even over the scents of sage and mint and honey winding through her olfactory system. "But I don't- know what those things are. I thought kissing you was a way to find that out."

"But you think these things might be of a romantic nature?" is the question, and it's impressively calm and evenly curious considering that Anna can  _hear_  Elsa's heartbeat pick up when she nods. "... alright, but- Anna, when we-  _if_  we kiss," Elsa corrects herself. "I want it to be because  _you want to_. Not because you're confused, not because you want to prove – to me or anyone – that you can feel about me the way I feel about you. I want you to kiss me because you think you  _can_  love me, Anna." A tender hand cups her cheek, and there are warm, soft lips against the other one. "Not because some part of you thinks that you have to."

Anna considers that, then sighs and moves closer until she has her head pillowed on Elsa's shoulder, with her heated forehead pressing against the cool, smooth skin of her sister's neck and slender arms wrapping around her in response.

"You're so bloody reasonable," Anna grumbles, but can't deny the tiny spark of relief she feels, or the oddity of it combining with the pang of disappointment.

There's a surprised, little chuckle that vibrates through the skin under her ear, and Elsa's fingers are stroking slow patterns at the center of her back. "No pressure, Anna, remember? Self-control has always been a skill of mine," she murmurs; voice thick with self-deprecating humor. "And you've always been good at testing it. It's nice to know that some things don't change."

Anna sighs, and rejects the notion to bite Elsa. Somehow, she doubts that would help.

"Okay," she mutters instead. "I take it back. You're not reasonable – you're just a brat."

That earns her another chuckle; somehow deeper this time. "Milady doth wound me with her cruel words," Elsa quips, and Anna giggles into her collarbone and wonders if this is normal; that someone can send her mood plummeting so low and then immediately yank it right back up.

Maybe it's just a talent of Elsa's.

xXxXx

Elsa somehow grows even more affectionate with her after that; much to Anna's relief, since she was halfway scared that the opposite would be true. But hugs are freely offered and happily received, and they last longer and longer each time. Elsa reading to her – or Anna reading to Elsa – becomes a nightly thing of theirs, and Anna takes an almost gleeful amount of enjoyment in finding out how to make her older sister relax the fastest.

Right now is the best way she's found so far, and it's probably not that surprising since Elsa having her head resting almost directly over Anna's heart certainly seemed to put her out like a light that late evening in front of the fire. Anna's still shocked that spending the night like that didn't make either of them wake up with a back-ache of some kind, but both of them were well-rested and full of energy, so she doesn't question it too much. If it isn't broken, why fix it?

Anna couldn't say what she's reading at the moment; she's just translating printed letters into verbal utterances without even really thinking about it, and is entirely too focused on the sheer peacefulness of the whole situation to worry about such details as what she's actually saying. Elsa is curled into her side with a silk-clad, orchid-colored arm wrapped loosely around Anna's waist, and her knees are tucked into the open space beneath Anna's own, since she's raised them enough to function as a place for her to set her book.

Elsa doesn't much seem to care what Anna selects to read to her. She's been equally happy to listen to her read fairytales, novels and even some of Kristoff's missives; the latter of which are usually infused with enough thoroughly dry commentary on the goings-on in Midheim to have them both giggling like a couple of kids before they're even halfway through them.

Right at this moment, she's pretty sure that Elsa is actually asleep, and that she has been for a while. Her breathing is even where it warms Anna's upper chest, and she can feel the slow, steady thump of a heartbeat against the side of her own ribs if she concentrates a little. Still, she keeps reading in her lowest voice; keeps running her fingers through the soft, starlight-colored hair that spills across the pillow and her own arm where it curls easily around Elsa's shoulders.

Because she doesn't want to leave. She doesn't want to go back to her own room – to her own bed – where even the crackling flames in the large fireplace can never seem to make it as warm as she feels when lying right here, curled up with her sister. It's not that she can't extract herself; she knows she can. She's done it before, and from exactly the same position.

But she stays.

xXxXx

When autumn is in full swing outside the castle walls, Anna and Elsa are pretty much inseparable. They work together, eat together at every meal, and have also started to spend a lot of time playing together. With the two of them being 18 and 21 respectively – and Elsa's 22nd birthday being only a few short months away – most would probably expect 'playing' to include such adult things as chess, reading, or maybe something including various skills befitting of female royalty.

Anyone expecting the above clearly wouldn't know either of them very well.

"Yow!" Anna dives behind a column with a squeal, and then brings her hands upto shield her face with a squeak when a snowball explodes bare inches away. "No fair!" she calls, but knows better than to actually stick her head out. "You chased me away from my ammunition cache!"

"There are piles of snow all over the room," is Elsa's thoroughly amused response, and it's close enough that Anna sucks in a breath and runs for the next column over. "Aww – where are you going?"

"Anywhere that's out of the line of fire – or ice!" she calls back, and this time  _does_  duck around the edge of her new shelter to stick out her tongue. "Pah! Bleh!" A mouthful of snow lands on the floor, and Anna scowls as she wipes a hand over her face to clear away the remaining powder. Her sister, it turns out, is standing about a half dozen bodylengths away and looking very pleased with herself. "I call unfair advantage," Anna grumbles.

"That's why I have to hit you three times, and you only have to hit me once," Elsa responds, with her hips cocking to one side and one eyebrow rising. "That was only the second."

"Oh, goodie." Anna rolls her eyes. "You get to thump me again, then."

"I'll thump your  _head_  if you don't stop pouting," is the mock-angry reply, and Anna snickers behind her cover before determining which pile of snow is the closer one.

Rats. No matter which one she chooses she'll have to cross open space, and the most immediate snow drift is straight across from her – on the opposite side of the ballroom. So she can either duck from column to column and let Elsa get significantly closer every time, or leg it across the floor and hope that she can zig-zag enough to not get hit. And judging from the sound of Elsa's heels clicking against the floor, she needs to decide now or it's going to be a moot point, anyway.

Rats. Rats, rats, rats and fruitbats.

Anna legs it, and manages to make it almost halfway to her target before a snowball impacts the floor next to her foot and makes her jump. "Hey!" Another near-hit and another cloud of snow, and now she's hopping from one foot to the next and cursing under her breath, because she can hear her sister giggling with every  _poof_  and this has clearly become no more than a game of cat and mouse.

 _Stinker_.

But the thought is an affectionate one all the same, and when Anna's circled enough that Elsa's in her field of vision, she grins. And charges.

"Wha- whoa!" Wide, sky-blue eyes, and Elsa's backpedaling. Not fast enough, though, and she yelps when Anna's arms wrap around her, then finally oofs a split-second later when they've both landed safely – if coldly – in the rough center of a large snowdrift. "Anna!"

"Yeeeees?" Anna all but purrs, and gets to her knees next to her prone sister. Her grin, she's sure, is wide enough to almost split her face in half.

"That--" Elsa tells her with a huff. "-- wasn't a snowball."

Anna doesn't even have time to think before she's suddenly on her back and having to wipe her face free of snow. Again. And Elsa's leaning over her with a positively wicked glint in her eyes; so close that she can feel warm breath ghosting over her face, and it's enough to send a thrill of anticipation creeping down the length of her spine.

 _I want her to kiss me_ , she realizes with a start, and feels her breathing hitch when Elsa stays exactly where she is for long, silent moments, with the look in her eyes intensifying a little when her hand brushes the side of Anna's waist.

But Elsa looks away and then sits up entirely, and Anna swallows a sigh and reflects that sometimes, she wishes that her elder sister wasn't quite as much a master of self-control as she is.

xXxXx

It's a similarly cool, autumn evening that sees both of them in Anna's room, with Anna herself seated in the chair in front of her vanity, clad in no more than her shift and a malachite-colored robe to ward off the lingering chill that the cheerful fire can't quite dispel. She's in an odd sort of mood; born both of the fact that she's almost unreasonably happy to be curling up with Elsa again, and of the fact that Kristoff is going to return in the next few days.

She's looking forward to seeing him again. But she also really,  _really_  needs to talk to him face to face, and that part, she isn't looking forward to.

"We need more handy terms for that," Anna decides, and tugs her hair over one shoulder before resuming her brushing as she purposely bats those thoughts away. Her arm's getting tired from the constant, repeating motion, but she knows that the more thorough she is now the less she's going to have to worry about tomorrow morning, so she sighs through her nose and keeps going.

"Handier than two words?" comes Elsa's mildly disbelieving comment from the little sitting area, and Anna can see her leaning forward in the sofa and frowning from the corner of her eye. It's Elsa's turn to read tonight, so Anna is the one getting ready for bed while her sister is still fully clothed, and patiently waiting with a book resting by her side. "What's wrong with 'positive ice' and 'negative ice'?"

Anna grins, and stands before flipping her hair over to hang down in front of her; she's banged her forehead on the vanity enough times to know not to sit down and do that. "Well," she replies, and her voice is a little off since her chin is currently resting against her own chest. "It's a special thing that only you can do, near as we know, right? So isn't it kind of cheapening it to use such common words? Specially thought up ones would fit so much better."

"If you say so," her sister concedes, and Anna can tell by her voice that she's simply humoring her, but that's okay. She's just playing around, anyway. Mostly.

"How about... plusfreeze, instead of 'positive ice?" Anna straightens and flicks her hair behind her again just in time to see Elsa hide her eyes behind one hand, and squelches a grin. "Goodfrost?" There's a low mutter from the couch that sounds vaguely like 'oh my god', and when Anna can't quite hold back her chuckle, it's followed by a narrow, brilliantly blue glare.

"You're teasing me," Elsa accuses.

Anna lets the tip of her tongue poke out through her grin, and runs her fingers through her hair to check for remaining tangles. " _Positice,_ " she pronounces with theatrical gravity, and then ends up jumping to a seat on the vanity with a startled whoop when the floor below her bare feet is suddenly covered in clear, blue ice. She studies it for a moment, idly aware of the clicking of Elsa's heeled shoes as she admires the perfect swirls that extend over the floorboards.

It's nothing short of art what Elsa can craft with this, as Anna knows well. Unfortunately, it's also the kind of ice that  _doesn't_  automatically avoid any contact with her whatsoever, so Elsa's learned to use it against her, and isn't shy about doing it.

When the shoes enter her field of vision and the ice evaporates below them, Anna looks up and lets her lips shape a cheeky smile. "I like your positice," she tells her sister with an idle kicking of her feet, and that's arguably a bad decision given where she's sitting, because she doesn't really have anywhere to  _go_  when Elsa starts tickling her.

"I'll show you  _positice_ ," Elsa growls in her ear, and all Anna can do is laugh and squirm against the fingers on her waist and hope that she doesn't end up knocking down something expensive.

"Uncle!" she cries. "Uncle!"

"Why on earth are you calling for an uncle?" Elsa questions, and her voice is so perfectly, scientifically curious that Anna would smack her if she wasn't busy trying not to laugh herself onto the floor.

"It's supposed to make you stop!"

"Why would it?" her sister wonders reasonably. "We don't have any uncles."

"Gurk- Elsaaa!" She's  _trying_  to get even, but her sister, damn her, apparently isn't ticklish in the slightest. "Mercy! I'm sorry!" And that, finally, makes Elsa relent, though she stays where she is and chuckles low in her chest – the brat - whenever Anna twitches with an aftershock-like giggle.

"You're so damn smug," Anna grumps, and tries to hold herself steady with her palms against the table on either side of her own hips. She butts her head lightly against a bare shoulder in reproach before looking up, and then sort of stops breathing for a half second or so, because it isn't until now that she realizes just how close Elsa is. She's literally  _right there_ , standing in the space between Anna's open knees with her hands resting lightly in the areas between Anna's hips and waist, and a slight tug at the corner of her mouth curling her lips into a smirk.

Anna realizes that she kind of wants to kiss her right now, and she latches onto that thought before it can run away because she needs to examine it more closely. If she's going to kiss Elsa, it can't in any way be because she knows that Elsa might want or expect her to. It has to be solely, exclusively because Anna  _herself_  wants it... and judging by how Elsa's gaze is shifting off to the side and a flush is creeping into her cheeks, she's thinking along similar lines. That's good, because it means that Anna can see the withdrawal coming and has time to decide how to react to it before it actually happens.

She ends up hooking her ankles behind Elsa's thighs when she feels the first, minute shift. The motion isn't rough or abrupt in any way, but Elsa's breath still hitches audibly, and while her face is so thoroughly neutral and carefully free of any expectation that it almost hurts to look at, her fingers are curling in the material of Anna's robe and her eyes squeezing shut (wanting, hiding, no pressure). In that moment, when Anna raises her hands and traces gentle, lingering lines over blushing cheeks and a proud forehead, Elsa is so beautiful and frightened and so clearly in love that it makes her heart clench. It then both breaks and loses a little of itself when she brushes a fingertip over full lips, because Elsa actually  _sobs_  at the touch. Not loud or harsh; just a soft, barely there little sound that still manages to convey that she's wanted this for probably a lot longer than Anna ever expected, and Anna's growing progressively more glad that she wants this too, because if she had to disappoint Elsa right now, she'd be breaking two hearts at once.

Instead, all she has to do is lift herself up a little; to slip her fingers past the agonizingly tense curve of Elsa's jaw and into the fine, silky hair at the base of her skull, and tug. Guide, too, just a bit, because Elsa's eyes are still tightly closed and her breath – when she  _does_  breathe - is harsh and ragged when it puffs against Anna's mouth. Since the vanity is low and Elsa therefore currently almost a full head taller, it's their foreheads that brush first. Next it's their noses, and Elsa's hands are clenching so tightly in the silk covering Anna's body that she's kind of bemusedly worried that this'll cost her a robe.

Then their lips meet, and the state of her robe is the absolute last thing on Anna's mind. She tries to be scientific; tries to catalog how the softness of Elsa's lips feel against her own, how the stuttering, occasional rush of warm breath feels when it washes over her face, and how it feels when Elsa's fingers flex against her sides. She is, however, also increasingly aware of the fact that Elsa is... well,  _frozen_ , for lack of a better term. Still as a statue, almost, even though Anna can feel her practically  _vibrate_  with the effort of restraining herself.

"Don't hold back so much," she whispers, and brushes her thumbs lightly over her sister's temples. "Relax, Elsa.  _Show me_."

The response is one Anna could probably best liken to a geyser erupting. It isn't rough or even sudden, but it  _is_  an almost-rumble that starts low in Elsa's throat and then expands upwards and outwards, and a tremble that begins in her shoulders and ends in her hands. The resulting groan is enough to send a shudder racing down Anna's spine that only intensifies when those lips are suddenly meeting hers with fervor. They're soft and supple and smooth as the silk she's wearing herself, and when her own lips are nudged open by a flicking tongue, she hears herself suck in a mewling breath as the kiss deepens, and feels Elsa's hands settle on her hips and  _clasp_.

And somewhere, Anna realizes that there  _is_  something Elsa has been hiding from her; something she's clearly been suppressing for Anna's sake, and something that Anna herself initially mistook her love to be, that day all those weeks ago.

 _Desire_.

It's so painfully, almost overwhelmingly evident now, with Elsa both  _pressing_  and  _pulling_  closer and the palms of her hands tracing firm lines over Anna's hips and thighs, and Anna doesn't even care when it crashes over her and sweeps her away. She's gripping Elsa's head, pressing into the base of her skull with her fingertips and feeling her own arms tremble from the want to be  _closer_. She's licking at the inside of Elsa's mouth and trying to memorize what makes her react the most as their mouths meet again and again, but it's pretty damn difficult since she's also very much wanting to arch into those hands when they reach the lower edge of her ribs and she just wants them  _higher_.

Then, suddenly, one hand is slipping into her own hair and tugging back, and Elsa is leaving wet, hot, open-mouthed kisses at the base of Anna's throat; lingering to suck at the skin only for a moment and not nearly long enough to leave any marks, but seeming very much like she  _wants_  to do just that. She's dragging her lips over the small spot of sensitive skin where Anna's heartbeat is fluttering rapidly, and when Anna feels first the scrape and then the light but noticeable sting of teeth, she shudders -  _moans_  - in a way that she didn't even know she could. Then Elsa's answering groan is vibrating against her throat, and Anna can barely think at all.

And those eyes are burning like beacons when they finally break apart; when Elsa looks at her from under half-closed lids and from topaz darkened to the purest, bluest sapphire. There's so much  _intent_  evident in the flush that tints her cheeks and the short, ragged breathing escaping through parted, reddened lips that it sends a trickle of anticipation down Anna's spine, and makes it as clear as the nose on her face that Elsa  _wants her_.

But at the same time, Elsa  _loves her_. That becomes evident when her features soften and she kisses her again. This time it's no more than the barest touch of lip against lip, but still enough to make Anna's eyes slip shut when she responds because it's so sweet and light compared to the heat and weight of just seconds ago. If the first kiss was the heady intoxication of dark, rich chocolate, then this is the gentle, summery tang of strawberries and soft, delicate cream. Both linger on her lips and leave flavors on her tongue that she will always remember, and both leave her wanting –  _craving_  – more.

When Elsa moves back, Anna follows. She curls her fingers tighter in that soft, pale hair and tugs until Elsa stops moving. She licks and sucks and  _nips_  at those lips until Elsa is whimpering against her mouth; until her hands are gripping, kneading Anna's sides and stroking the skin through two layers of thin fabric in a faint, almost non-existent touch that travels higher and higher and lower and lower every time. It's heated all over again, but also gentle and warm and tingling.

It's  _everything_ , and Anna is drowning in it willingly. Then it stops, and her eyes flutter open to see blue eyes just a breath away, staring at her with a look that's wonder and want and love all at once.

"I think you need to talk to Kristoff," Elsa sighs, and closes her eyes as she willfully, deliberately breaks the mood.

Anna just rests her forehead against her sister's collarbone and tries not to suddenly feel sick. Not at what they did - although yes, she did just cheat on Kristoff, so there's a little of that, too – but at the thought of her having this talk with him with so soon after him coming come. Because she  _does_  need to talk to him, and now there's absolutely no doubt in her mind what that talk is going to end with.

In Kristoff's kisses, she's always tasted safety and warmth and love; all things she also tasted on Elsa's lips. But with Elsa, the tang of passion was so sharp that the flavor almost bowled her over, and her heart is still racing from it. More than that, she swears she caught the faintest trace of  _forever_ , too, lingering deep in those blue eyes.

And she can't let that slip away. Even if it costs her everything she has with Kristoff. Even if she isn't really, fully in love with Elsa.

Because the last one, Anna knows as Elsa's arms slip around her in a gentle embrace, is only a matter of time.

xXxXx

When a palace guard tells her that Kristoff entered the city not long ago, it's during dinner on the very next day, and Anna's spoon promptly drops from suddenly nerveless fingers and straight into her soup. She's aware of Elsa's worried gaze and tries to meet it with a smile, but the tiny frown she gets in response tells her that she's being anything but convincing.

Her appetite has vanished as well – shoved out of the way by what must surely be a pile of rocks suddenly residing in her gut - so she spends only a few minutes staring into her bowl before she softly excuses herself and stands. She doesn't want to do this – is, in fact, feeling so sick that she's worried about losing what dinner she  _did_  ingest – but she knows that she has to, and that putting it off will only make it worse.

So she takes a breath and makes to step away from the table, and then blinks when her hand is caught.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Elsa is asking, very quietly and very seriously, and Anna really, really wants to kiss her again in that moment. If they'd been alone, she probably would have, but instead, she brushes a hand over her head and leans down to simply kiss her cheek.

"I'll be fine," she promises softly, and hopes that maybe saying it out loud will make herself feel better, as well. "I'll be back soon, okay?"

Elsa nods, and while she does release her grasp on Anna's hand, she also catches her fingers on her own for a long as possible; skin sliding gently over skin until even the very tips of their fingers have to part as Anna walks away.

She can feel those blue eyes burning into her back for as long as she's in view, and she takes comfort in the weight of them even after it's been removed and she's walking across the bridge to the city; swathed in a warm, hooded cloak both in order to ward off the chill in the air, and to keep her face out of view so she won't be recognized, because she really doesn't have the surplus energy to talk to anyone right now.

The closer she gets to Kristoff's house, the harder her heart is pounding and the more she has to remind herself to breathe normally. Kristoff won't hate her. Really.

He won't.

It's dark out at this point, but there's still no light to be seen beyond his windows, and Anna frowns for all of two seconds before she rolls her eyes at herself and takes the two dozen steps around the corner of the house and over to the door to the small stable. She can hear his voice (and Sven's) before she sees anything but their flickering shadows extending out of the door, and has to just  _stop_  out of view and take a minute to get a hold of herself before she can keep going.

But her hand still shakes when she raises it to knock on the already open door.

"Anna!" Kristoff is smiling from ear to ear when he turns and sees her, and Sven's lowing and hopping in excited greeting right behind him. Then, at the same time, they both just  _stop_  and tilt their heads at her, and she almost, almost starts giggling because they're so identical in that one moment that it's actually pretty funny.

But she's honestly too anxious to laugh, so...

"What's wrong?" Kristoff asks softly when he suddenly stands in front of her, and when Anna meets his eyes she just... she can tell that he knows. Maybe not exactly what's going on, but he knows that whatever it is, he probably isn't going to like it. Ans she really, really hates the fact that he knows her so well and he's so understanding and such a good guy and she  _does_  love him. But she has to hurt him anyway.

"Hey, hey..." His fingers close gently around her elbows, and he guides her into the stable and closes the door behind them both. "Alright... come on, feistypants." The nickname just makes her choke on a sob. "Whatever it is, just lay it on me, okay? I can take it; I promise."

And she tells him. Everything. From the day where Elsa kissed her to how she found out that Elsa is  _in love with her_ , from her getting confused to her kissing Elsa. And Kristoff just listens. Just nods. Just watches her, and – halfway through her stuttering, tearful retelling – guides her to a seat in a pile of straw and rubs her back.

At the end, he just lies back into the warm straw, and when he looks at her and holds out one arm, Anna only hesitates for a second before curling into his side and resting her head on his shoulder. It's... kind of strange, almost, because she can tell that he's hurting; she can see it in his eyes and the crooked, not-quite-normal way he's smiling. But he  _is_ smiling, and it's almost as if he sort of saw it coming. And Anna doesn't understand how he  _could_ , because she certainly didn't. So she asks.

"Anna." Kristoff's wan chuckle rumbles through the massive chest under her ear. "You were willing to  _die_  for her, and she loves  _you_  so much that she changed winter into  _summer_. Sure, it coulda been just strong, sisterly love, but it could also have been a lot more, y'know? Turns out it was."

She just stares at him for a long moment, because he's so... so  _calm_  and it's...

"Why aren't you mad at me?!" she ends up demanding.

Kristoff just grins; it's still not his usual one, but it's close. "I'm not good at being mad at people I care about, feistypants," he tells her. "Besides, at least you saved me from making a complete ass of myself. Could you imagine if we got married and I suddenly became royalty? I'd have destroyed the high-brow, elegant name of the Arendelle line in less than a week."

Anna snorts into her own hand, and then smacks him. "You'd have made a great prince, Kristoff," she promises softly, and feels the arm he's got wrapped around her shoulders squeeze gently in response. Even Sven isn't mad at her; he's settled into the hay on the other side of Kristoff, and is now resting his heavy head on his friend's chest and lipping at Anna's sleeve until she reaches out and rubs the bristly fur between his eyes.

And Anna's tearing up all over again because it's so,  _so_  not right for anyone to cause this wonderful man any pain; least of all her.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers into his chest, but Kristoff tucks two fingers under her chin and lifts her face until he can kiss her forehead.

"Don't be sorry, Anna. Be  _happy_."

And of course, that only makes her cry harder.

xXxXx

By the time Anna makes it back to the castle, she can't recall ever being this exhausted before. It's lingering in her limbs and making them feel as heavy as lead, and she keeps the hood of her cloak pulled up even when inside, because she's sure that her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy from crying. At the same time, though, she feels light, even if the guilt of hurting Kristoff is still there, too.

They're okay, her and him. They're both hurting and it'll take time, but they're okay now and will only get better from here. And now, she can focus on Elsa without worrying about keeping it hidden from those she loves best. So she really isn't all that surprised when she finds herself standing in front of the door to the queen's chambers without even consciously deciding to go there. Her heart, she's learning, will always lead her to Elsa.

The door opens almost immediately after her knocking on it, so clearly, Elsa's been waiting. When their eyes meet, Elsa's just immediately start aching with sympathy, and Anna barely has the time to draw in a sudden, hitched breath before she's being tugged inside and the door is pushed shut. Then there's an arm slipping under the cloak and around her waist, and she's sobbing against the side of Elsa's throat while a tender hand pushes the cloak's hood back and just slowly, soothingly strokes the back of her head.

"It's okay, Anna," Elsa whispers, and sounds a little teary herself. "I've got you. It's okay."

And she's right; it  _is_  okay. It just still hurts.

"Can I stay here tonight?" she asks when her voice is somewhat steady again. "Not- not for, um..." She glances up, and it seems to be an even match to decide which one of them is blushing the hardest. "Just- I really don't want to be alone."

"I never want you to be alone." Elsa's voice is soft but intent, and her fingers are carefully wiping away the last of the wetness beneath Anna's eyes even as her lips shape a small, wry smile "In fact, I almost followed you earlier."

She almost looks ashamed at the admission, Anna decides, and then nudges that expression off of her face by rising up to kiss her. Not for long; just a brief, lingering peck that makes her smile when she feels Elsa suck in a short, surprised breath.

"Thank you," she then murmurs, and brushes the backs of her fingers over Elsa's cheek when the pale head cocks in question. "For trusting me to handle things myself."

Elsa just catches her hand and squeezes it, and then guides her into the bedroom. "Do you want me to send for some of your nightclothes?" she wonders.

"No." Anna shakes her head, and closes her eyes when they both come to a stop and she feels Elsa's fingers unclasp her cloak and remove it. The simple act is enough to send faint tingles spreading over her skin, and she reflects that that must say something about her, because she should be much too tired to feel anything of the sort right now. "I'd just like to borrow something of yours, if that's okay."

"Of course." There's a few moments of quiet rustling, and then Elsa's pressing something soft and – surprise of surprises – blue into her hands, and pointing to a door not far away. "You go change in the bathroom," she says, and gives her a gentle nudge. "I'll stay here."

So Anna goes, and she smiles when she closes the door behind her because Elsa is being an absolute rock right now. She's patient and understanding and so,  _so_  loving that Anna doesn't even care that she's only actually said the words out loud once, because she doesn't  _need to_. Elsa is giving her space by sending her in here, where  _Anna_  can close the door and just be alone if that's what she needs, but also showing without words that Anna is welcome to come to her for comfort – that she can trust her - by letting her sleep here, by letting her use Elsa's own things, and by both offering to be there and at the same time respect her when she wants,  _needs_  to do something on her own.

The actions are tiny but speak volumes to Anna, and when the simple, sleeveless, cobalt night dress settles around her, it almost feels like Elsa's arms.

"Anna?" Elsa's halfway-muffled voice follows a brief, soft knock on the door. "Can I come in?"

"I don't know," she teases because she feels secure and supported enough to do that even after today, and runs a washcloth over one arm. "Can you?"

Elsa's eyes aren't quite done rolling when she opens the door and enters, after having apparently changed as well; Anna can see that much in the mirror in front of her without even having to turn. "Clearly, you're-" And she stops. Blinks. Breathes – sort of. "-fine." Her voice is at least one octave higher than normal now, and the fingers she still has on the handle are clenching so hard that her knuckles are turning white.

Anna officially counts herself as intensely flattered, because she doesn't need to look into the mirror to feel those blue eyes burning into her skin. So she just swallows a smirk and finishes washing off her arms.

"Blue suits you," Elsa murmurs after a few seconds and the low sound of bare feet, and her hands are cool and soft where they brush against Anna's back as she carefully undoes one braid, then the other. And Anna's just smiling to herself and looking down at the floor because blue has always been Elsa's color, so she thinks she kind of knows why Elsa likes seeing her in it.

To Elsa, seeing Anna in blue might just be a final affirmation that Anna is hers. Fully hers, now. And she really needs to convince Elsa to wear green at some point, because turnabout is definitely fair play.

When she feels Elsa's fingers glide through her hair from scalp to end, Anna turns until she can lean back against the counter that holds the basin. It's clear that on some level Elsa wasn't expecting her to, because there's an oddly vulnerable look in her eyes that almost fades, and only comes back to the forefront when Anna cups her jaw in one hand and holds her gaze. It's a soft look – wondering and almost disbelieving - and Anna doesn't really understand what it means, but she wants to.

So she thinks. Pulls up the memory of how Elsa seemed to want to mark her last night, but stopped herself. How she was waiting by the door when Anna came home. How she likes seeing her in blue.

And it clicks.

"You're relieved," she deduces, and when Elsa nods, she frowns when she tries to figure out why. Then she remembers the dining room, and the way Elsa kept watching her; kept touching her for as long as she could without actively holding her back. And briefly, Anna closes her eyes.

"You never fully expected me to break things off with Kristoff, did you?" A shake of the blonde head; halting, hesitant, but there. "You worried that I was going to come back and tell you that the kiss was a mistake. And if I had, you probably would've just let it go without saying anything." A nod – just one - with those blue eyes never leaving hers.

"Elsa..." Anna sighs, and flicks her sister in the forehead with gentle fingers in exchange for a small chuckle. "Why do you always expect the worst?"

"Because then when the worst doesn't happen, I'm always pleasantly surprised," is the wry answer, and Elsa captures her hand in both of her own before placing a lingering kiss on her knuckles. "And all I ever wanted is for you to be happy. Even if it isn't with me."

Anna just hugs her as tightly as she can, and has to fight back tears at the feeling of fingers stroking through her hair and kisses touching against her hairline right above her temple. Because Elsa is too sweet. Too selfless. Too good to be true. And Anna doesn't deserve her, but  _God_ , she wants to.

She isn't sure how they make it over to the bed – she's too tired, too emotionally wrung out to pay any real attention at this point – but they do, and Elsa lies down on her side with Anna's head tucked under her chin. They're literally touching from head to one; wrapped up in each other's arms with their legs entwined and only two layers of smooth silk separating skin from skin.

And yet, there is no desire here; no urgent need to touch and taste. There's just Elsa's arms holding her, Elsa's hands stroking her back and Elsa's fingers slowly, soothingly combing through her hair until all Anna knows is peace and safety and  _love_. Until all she can feel is the comforting warmth under the covers, and all she can hear are the gentle sounds of two sets of breathing, the crackling of the fire and the soft lullaby that Elsa is humming; both coming from her lips and reverberating tenderly around the heartbeat by Anna's ear.

 _"Roses, red and glowing, among the thorns are growing_ ," Elsa sings, so low that she's almost whispering, and there are the lightest of brushes of her lips against Anna's head as she does. _"All the thorns I keep for me. All the roses are for thee. Roses, red and glowing._ "

Much later – weeks, even months down the line - when Anna tries to look back and find the moment where she first, truly knew that she was falling hard, this is the one she chooses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lullaby Elsa sings is a real-world one, and if anyone's curious, it can be found [here on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hKiRzc8J68), with both the original, Danish lyrics, and the officially translated, English ones.


	4. The Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings:  
> Icest, suggestive content (we pretty much get right into it), few instances of language, mild possessiveness, biting, feels, and general smut.

Anna is pretty surprised when her eyes open the next morning. In fact, she's almost downright shocked, and at several things at once.

One, it takes her a few seconds to realize why it's so dark, but a glance towards the window tells her that there's only the faintest stripe of dark blue in the blackness outside, and  _wow_ , when has she ever woken up this early on her own before? Two, she has to spend some time figuring out why she's wrapped around someone else, but the shoulder her head is resting on is as familiar as the arm curled around her back, and it isn't long before she's sinking into Elsa's somnolent embrace with a contented sigh.

She's almost slipped back off to sleep when her eyes snap open again, and she somehow manages to rise up on one elbow and just watch without jostling too much, even if the rise itself happens in little more than the blink of an eye.

Elsa is still sound asleep, and Anna can see her clearly even in the weak, fluttering glow of the remaining embers in the fireplace. The clear, sky-blue eyes are hidden behind closed lids with long, dark lashes curling gently over the skin above her cheekbones. and her lips are parted just a fraction as she breathes slowly and silently, with her head turned towards Anna. She's rolled onto her back sometime during the night, and the arm that isn't encircling Anna's back is resting over the one that Anna – along with one of her legs - has slung over her belly in turn. Her hair is as free as it was last night, long and wavy and a little wild as it extends over the deep, blue pillows, and glittering in the reddened light like molten gold.

And Anna's sort of awestruck when she reaches up and catches a few, silky strands of it on her own fingers.

 _Wow_ , her mind tickles her dumbly.  _She's mine._

Anna remembers everything from the day before, and while there's still some hurt lingering from her talk with Kristoff, right now she's mostly... just floating. Because  _damn_ , Elsa is  _hers;_  guilt-free, fully, and apparently more than a little surprised at it, if Anna's remembering the last minutes of yesterday correctly. The last thought makes her frown, and she turns it over in her mind while tracing feather-light lines over the purple silk that covers Elsa's ribs. Because... well, surprised is generally good; shows appreciation, mostly. At the same time, she doesn't want Elsa to be  _that_  surprised, because that means that she genuinely believed that Anna could never want her. That she wasn't enough.

And that's just... no. Absolutely not true, even though Anna gets where it's coming from considering how she reacted the first time Elsa kissed her. So she needs to keep an eye on that, because the thought of Elsa doubting how completely and almost intimidatingly perfect she is... that's wrong on so many levels that Anna can't even begin to count them.

Elsa is pretty much everything that Anna never knew she dreamed of, and she has to remember to thank her some day because if Elsa hadn't fallen in love with her, Anna knows that she would never have figured it out herself. For now, she dips her head enough to kiss one pale cheek, and then swallows a giggle when Elsa mumbles something incomprehensible and turns her head away, because that effectively brings her other cheek into the not-even-half-light. So she kisses that one, too, and ends up lingering there with her nose just barely brushing the skin over Elsa's cheekbone, because she smells unreasonably good and Anna can't figure out how someone can smell of winter winds and warm hearths all at once.

But Elsa manages, somehow, and with as little, seeming effort that she does anything else. And Anna knows how untrue that is; knows that Elsa rarely does anything so effortlessly, and that she in fact probably puts more effort – more  _thought_  – into her life than pretty much anyone else. But she still catches herself sometimes; realizes that she's staring at (or just thinking of) her older sister with nothing short of unabashed  _awe_ , and this moment isn't any different.

Because Elsa is  _that_  beautiful,  _that_  clever, and  _that_  kind. She is  _that_  warm to lie next to, smells  _that_  good and has  _such_  soft skin that Anna just can't help but kiss it over and over again in a meandering, barely there trail that starts over a high cheekbone, continues over a perfectly curved nose and onto a proud forehead, then travels down a warm temple and onto a strong, but feminine jaw. The hand of the arm she's half-holding herself aloft on is slowly stroking over – through – the honey-scented hair on Elsa's head, and after long moments of peaceful affection, she hears a soft, content sigh and feels the hand that rests on her other arm squeeze gently.

"You awake?" Anna raises her head enough that her face is almost directly over Elsa's. The blue eyes are closed, however, and there's not a single twitch visible in the low light. Her breathing is still perfectly even, and Anna smiles as she drops another light kiss to the tip of Elsa's nose. The smile becomes a grin when the smooth skin wrinkles in reaction, because God, that's cute.

So she keeps kissing her; keeps inhaling the familiar scent of the smooth skin under her lips, and tightens her leg around Elsa's thighs when she nips at a spot at the base of her throat and feels the ribs under her arm expand sharply.

"Mm. Ah... Anna?" comes the half-awake mumble, and the hand on her arm flexes again.

"Mmhm." Her fingers press against the fine silk, and when she strokes the gentle bumps and indents beneath it and tastes the skin below Elsa's jaw, she both feels and hears her breathing hitch. "Is this okay?" she murmurs, and smiles when the immediate reply is an uneven exhale and the slide of a cool hand over her arm, up to her shoulder and into her hair.

"Yes," Elsa breathes, and when Anna drags her lips further back and nibbles curiously at a snowy earlobe, the soft, guttural sound she hears is enough to make her own heart skip three beats in a row.

She knows that she's toeing a line here, and it's honestly one that she's not sure if she's entirely prepared to cross just yet. But she feels so, so safe in these arms (still -  _always_ \- the safest place in the world) and Elsa is so  _warm_ , with the only cool points being the fingers that either rest on Anna's lower back or tangle in her hair. It's a powerful, intoxicating rush that makes her body heat up from the gut outwards, and she presses closer, shifts, moves; until she's resting in the vee of Elsa's pajama-clad legs and can trace the hard bob in a slim throat when her sister swallows.

When Anna nudges with her nose, Elsa turns her head. When Anna presses down with her hips, Elsa sucks in a sharp, high-pitched breath, and the thighs bracketing her waist tighten reflexively; as if she wants to rise up, but is doing her utmost to not demand and just let Anna explore. Her head is angled back and to the side and her eyes shut while Anna nips and licks and sucks at her ear and the skin around it, and her breath is coming in short, ragged bursts as she presses herself down in the mattress and her fingers tighten on Anna's exposed shoulders.

There are five tiny clasps holding Elsa's pajama top closed from throat to sternum, and Anna has never wanted to undo a button so much in her life. She traces the tip of her index finger around and between them; acutely aware of the sharp movements of Elsa's diaphragm underneath her as she watches the contrast between the purple silk and her own skin. Then there are surprisingly gentle hands cradling her face, and she looks up to meet lidded eyes with pupils so dilated there's almost no blue left.

It's the most pleasant punch to the gut Anna's ever experienced, and she holds that ardent gaze as she shifts onto one elbow and drags her finger lower. The only sounds are those of two sets of heavy breathing and the whisper of skin against silk, so when Anna carefully traces the underside of a full breast, Elsa's soft, breathless mewl is all the more apparent. Even if she's trying to hold it back by ensnaring her lower lip between her teeth.

"God, Anna," Elsa whispers, and brushes a trembling thumb over her lips. "Your eyes are so... I can't believe I do this to you."

That's actually kind of funny, Anna muses somewhere as Elsa tugs her down for a light kiss that quickly grows deep and heated, because she was thinking almost the exact same thing. Right now, however, she's entirely too preoccupied to laugh, and instead focuses on the smooth drag of satiny lips against her own and the slight sting of long fingers tightening in her hair; on the incredible softness in her hand when she lets it cup that breast gently, and on the low, whimpering moan she swallows with her own mouth as Elsa's body jerks faintly beneath her.

And  _fuck_ , for someone with ice magic, Elsa is setting her on  _fire_. She's so responsive to Anna's touch, and at the same time she's putting so much effort into restraining herself that she's physically shaking; just like the night before last. She's letting Anna set the pace even though it must be driving her crazy, because Anna can feel the sheer  _heat_  pressing into her where their bodies meet, and when she lets her lips close around a spot of skin below Elsa's ear and bites lightly, all she can hear is the low, drawn out almost-wail right next to her own cheek; one that has Elsa's voice breaking no less than three times and almost makes Anna forget to breathe.

She really needs to remember that spot, because when she laves it with her tongue and then sucks it into her mouth, Elsa's self-control cracks enough for her to actually buck and cry out, and when Anna follows up by lightly dragging the entire length of one finger over a straining nipple, the entire world turns on it's ear and she's suddenly staring  _up_  into those burning eyes, with her wrists pinned to the mattress on either side of her head, long, pale hair cascading around her like a curtain and a trembling, raggedly-breathing Snow Queen astride her hips.

"Holy crap!" Anna blurts because she wasn't aware that her sister could  _pounce_  that fast, and her shock seems to break through the thick haze of arousal in those eyes, because Elsa blinks once, twice, and then chuckles.

"Surprised?" she wonders with a crooked, little grin, and although her expression is now mainly one of playful contentment and her hold on Anna's wrists a formality at most, her voice is still so low and husky that it makes Anna shiver all over.

"Uh..." The sound of her own voice is uncommonly deep, too, and she tries clearing her throat a few times, even if Elsa hardly seems to mind the change. "Yeah. And it rem- reminded me of a-" There's a cool fingertip slowly stroking each of her palms, and that's making it surprisingly hard to think. "- a circus. Years ago. They had a- um, a tiger, but... it was white. Y'know." Anna chews lightly on her own lower lip. "Pale fur." Pause. "Really blue eyes."

"A tiger, hm?" The blue eyes immediately above her are glinting with both amusement and warm affection, but also with something else when Elsa lowers herself a little. Last Anna saw that look she ended up taking a snowball to the face, but Elsa just nuzzles her cheek before letting their noses brush. "That means that since I've caught you-" Her hold on Anna's wrists tightens briefly. "- I get to keep you, doesn't it?" she murmurs against the very edge of her lips, and something about the tone of her voice makes Anna's breath hitch.

"Uh-huh," she croaks, because there really is no other word for it. Up until now, she was well aware that Elsa is beautiful, frighteningly intelligent, generally soft-spoken and just all-around almost heartbreakingly gentle. Now, however, is the first time that she's truly realized just how  _seductive_  she can look; hovering as she is above Anna with dark, half-lidded eyes reflecting the glow of the embers and a warm, feminine body so tantalizingly close and yet still frustratingly out of reach.

Anna can't quite decide if she should press closer not, but something low in her gut is tightening when Elsa's gaze lowers and soft lips press against the just-barely exposed skin over her sternum. Her breath is hot and moist when it moves up to one collarbone and then crosses over to the other, and the way her hands glide over the sensitive skin on the inside of Anna's arms is enough to send tiny shocks down the length of her body. She's trying to keep still like Elsa did – wants her to have the peace to explore, too – but self-control was never her area of expertise, and she only lasts long enough for soft hands to trace the outsides of her ribs before her back is warping and her eyes slipping shut.

"I love how you never hold back," Elsa breathes against her skin, and Anna has all of one second to take that to heart and mentally chuckle at herself, because  _of course_  Elsa isn't expecting anything other than for Anna to be Anna. Then a warm mouth is latching onto the base of her throat and sucking, and that effectively wipes everything else from her mind and leaves her unable to do anything but grab onto Elsa with both hands and gasp.

It's...  _God_ , if Elsa had to stop herself from reacting to this, it's no wonder that she was shaking all over. It's way too much and not nearly enough all at once, and when there are cool fingers creeping up the front of her chest and a silk-covered knee settling between her own, Anna can't decide if she wants to kiss Elsa for being gentle or curse her for teasing. Either way, neither one is an option while those soft lips and that warm tongue is laving that one spot of skin, because as long as that's happening, Anna's arching so high that she's lucky to be able to even keep her back on the mattress.

Elsa's weight is settling on top of her, but Anna manages to lift even that when a slim, strong thigh presses firmly against the apex of her own legs. There's a cry echoing faintly off the ceiling; it has to be hers because Elsa's mouth isn't free to release one until it fades, and when it finally is, Anna's gripping her head and claiming those lips until Elsa's moans are winding around her tongue. She can tell that Elsa's shifting up and back – that she's trying to extract herself and let things slow down – and while part of her understands why, she still hooks one of her legs around Elsa's hips and pulls her back down, and the groan that earns her is enough to make her shiver.

"You are  _so_  bad for my willpower," is the whisper against her lips several breathless moments later, but Anna feels her smile when she can't quite hold back a soft laugh.

"I prefer to think of it as giving you the chance to keep practicing," she teases on the tail-end of an uneven exhale, and gives that warm mouth another light kiss before gently brushing a handful of fire-gilded hair back. "I'm not even gonna apologize."

"No." A sigh warms the lower half of her face, and it's followed by a soft chuckle as Elsa – this time around – manages to move enough to lie down next to her, rather than on top of her. "God, Anna, never apologize for this. That was-" Another sigh, followed by the brush of tender, still-shaky fingers over the side of her face. "- more than I ever expected to have with you."

There's that doubt again, Anna realizes with a frown, and rolls onto her side before lifting herself up on one elbow and waiting for the blue eyes to open. When they do, she manages to bend her neck enough to meet them with a very serious expression in spite of her entire body still tingling, and watches the golden brows arch curiously.

"Get used to it," she says simply, and finds herself utterly charmed when Elsa forms the most sheepishly pleased expression she's ever seen on another human being. It's so unbearably cute that Anna just  _has_  to kiss her again, and even if she means for it to be short, that's easier said than done when her body's still very much alive. She has to lean forward enough that she ends up overbalancing, and when she catches herself by setting a hand on Elsa's hip and their lips meet, there's a slow, return touch that travels up her arm and curls around the back of her neck.

Neither of them are breathing any more evenly when they finally part again, and Anna ends up sighing and licking her lips, with her eyes remaining closed as she rests her forehead against Elsa's.

"This isn't getting us very far," she observes wryly, and feels her cheeks flush when Elsa chuckles.

"Sure it is," her sister counters. "It's not getting us out of bed, no, but we're becoming a lot more comfortable with each other, and at least the sun's up now." There's a cool touch rounding her ear – brushing her hair back - and she can hear the smile in Elsa's voice. "You're very beautiful when you blush, by the way."

Predictably – or at least Anna thinks so – that only makes her blush harder, and when she opens her eyes and meets Elsa's warm gaze, feels the hand on her cheek and sees the tender smile on her face, she just... she feels suddenly shy and oddly vulnerable, and has to look down.

"Hey." A light touch nudges her chin up until those blue eyes are back in her field of vision. "What's wrong? Did- was all of this too soon, or-"

"Elsa, I  _started_  'all of this'," Anna cuts her off gently, and finds a smile. "In every way. No, it wasn't too soon. Just... new. Different." Elsa is frowning, and Anna pushes at the furrow in her brow with a fingertip until it goes away. "And in hindsight... a little scary. I didn't know I could get so lost in another person."

"Oh," Elsa mutters. "So with Kristoff..."

"We never really went beyond just kissing," Anna admits, and watches her own finger trace circles on the purple silk. "But no. With him it was always nice, but you? That's something else." A glance back up makes her have to bite back a laugh, because Elsa's expression seems to be stuck somewhere between wanting to puff up with pride and being too kind to, and it honestly looks mostly like she just smelled something unpleasant.

Anna ends up kissing her again just for that, and also because she really is entirely too adorable to resist – the startled squeak when their lips meet is just further proof - and when she pulls back to see wide, blue eyes and blushing cheeks in the pale, morning sunlight, she knows somewhere that falling in love with Elsa is going to be very, very easy.

She also knows that she's halfway there already. At least.

"Hey." She drops a kiss to Elsa's still-red cheek, and then settles down with her head on a very comfy shoulder and her neck tilted back enough for their eyes to still meet. "When you blush? You're beautifuller."

"Hm." Elsa gives her a look at that choice of words, but curls an arm around her shoulders and places a kiss to her forehead. "Thank you. And I'm guessing you're alright?"

"Oh yeah." Anna nestles closer, and wraps an arm around the purple-clad waist with a contented sigh. "Never better. Just let me know when you start feeling squished," she murmurs, and smiles at the low chuckle that rumbles faintly under her ear. It's a comforting sound, and she's almost in a half-doze when it hits her that maybe it's been going for a little too long, so she frowns as her hearing sharpens enough for her to examine the noise more closely.

Then her eyes snap open.

"Are you  _purring?"_ she blurts, wide-eyed, and presses her ear to Elsa's chest when the sound is first cut off by a soft laugh and then resumes more loudly. "You're purring! How did you learn to  _purr?"_ she demands, and then pauses. "Can tigers purr?"

Elsa laughs again, and her nails are scratching slow, light patterns on Anna's back. "Yes, practice, and I'm not sure," she answers. "Perhaps? Regular cats can."

"Ah." Anna lets her lips twitch into a grin. "So what you're saying is that you might not be a tiger, but you're definitely a housecat."

It takes all of two seconds before Elsa's on top of her again, although this time Anna's out of breath simply because she's laughing so hard.

"Housecat, am I?" Elsa growls, and digs her fingers into Anna's sides and armpits and ribs, and Anna's sure she's grinning but she can't see it because she has to keep her eyes screwed shut or she's going to laugh them right out of her skull. She's pretty much flailing bodily, but Elsa isn't relenting and Anna's just trying to choke back any loud noise avoid waking up the entire castle. "If I'm a housecat..." She stops, and Anna sucks in a much needed breath just before those fingertips start skittering again. "That makes you the  _mouse!"_

"YEEEOW!" This time, she loses the battle with her vocal chords, and now she's actually  _crying_  with laughter. "Elsa!"

"I love that squeal," is the low, satisfied murmur next to her ear, and when the sensation of tickling combines with the sensual drag of Elsa's lips over her jaw, the contradicting signals are almost enough to make Anna sneeze. "Do you yield, Princess?"

"I yield, I yield!" she howls, and then hiccups. "All hail the queen!"

"That's more like it," Elsa decides when she finally relents, and while she's too close for her entire face to be visible, the look in her eyes is decidedly smug when she presses a light kiss to the tip of Anna's nose.

"Some housecat," Anna mutters breathlessly, and this time they both start laughing.

xXxXx

Anna was expecting the guilt over hurting Kristoff to linger for a while, and while she's right in that respect, she's apparently also vastly overestimated how much she actually ends up dwelling on it. She does, however, have two very good ways of moving past it. One is that she and Kristoff agreed to just not talk or see each other for a while so they could both wrap their heads around everything. The other... well, the other is Elsa, and it turns out to be very hard to feel guilty and beat up on yourself when the exhilaration of new love is there every single day.

While they still read to each other, they haven't slept in the same bed since that first night; primarily because they both agree that they should probably take things a little slowly, and the sheer, physical chemistry between them is going to make that extremely difficult if they're going to be in each other's arms on a nightly basis (Anna didn't even realize that she was sporting a rather impressive love bite until they were getting dressed). It can prove hard enough to keep a rein on themselves when they're just sneaking kisses and hugs in private during the day.

Not that Anna minds; she's obtained some very fond memories of a great many rooms in the castle at this point. She's quite sure that Elsa is enjoying herself as well, but she wants this to be about the emotion rather than the physical release, even if she's also really,  _really_  looking forward to that aspect, because if their time together thus far has been any indication, it's going to be well beyond memorable.

But she tries not to think about that too much, because while Elsa's self-control is indeed very impressive, Anna is also  _quite_  confident that she could make it crumble to dust if she put her mind to it. And no, because she wants – for both of their sakes – to be able to look into those beautiful, blue eyes and know that she loves Elsa every bit as much as Elsa loves her before that happens, so right now they're essentially courting each other, and Anna's not above some amount of private amusement at how they're kind of going about the whole thing a little backwards.

It's a sharp learning curve for Anna. Though she definitely knows Elsa well, she hasn't ever really had to consider such things as what she could get her as a present, or what makes her blush, or swoon, or anything along those lines. When Elsa and her were still children, their parents usually worried about the gift-giving, and in terms of actually having a romantic partner in her life, her experience has been limited to Kristoff. Anna doesn't think Elsa has any particular fondness for carrots, and since she has no use for a new sleigh, there's been some brain-wracking happening.

Lavish gifts, Anna's learned, is not Elsa's thing. She's the queen, after all, so lavish is pretty much such a big part of both of their lives that it doesn't really register anymore. Instead, they both try to do more simple things for each other; like Anna having the kitchens prepare a favorite dish of Elsa's, or the two of them just spending an uninterrupted hour together. A preferred method of her sister's is to make sure that there are fresh flowers in Anna's room every night by the time she goes to bed, and she's yet to slip off to sleep without a smile on her face.

Additionally, Anna recently discovered that Elsa hasn't even set foot in the castle's impressive gardens since they were children, and after she stopped gaping at her over it, she firmly decided that that needed rectifying. So that's what they're doing now, in the still-warm sunlight of an autumn afternoon.

It has to be one of the last roses of the season, and Anna guesses that the only reason it's still in bloom is the fact that it's climbing up the stone wall that circles the garden in its entirety. That keeps it shielded from the worst of the autumn winds while at the same time allowing for both sunlight and rainfall, and as a result, the blossoms are full and rich in color; a deep pink that fades to a gilded yellow at the base of each petal.

In fact, the color reminds her of something.

"Elsa?"

The reply is near-instantaneous, and right next to her ear. "Yes?"

"God!" She clutches at her chest, and glowers at her smirking sister as she tries to will her heart rate back to normal. "Don't do that."

"You called me," Elsa protests.

"Well, yeah," Anna chuckles. "I just didn't expect you to be standing in my back pocket." She sticks out her tongue as she catches Elsa by the hand and tugs until the older woman is standing directly next to the roses. Then she studies the result, and grins. "Yup," she decides with a nod. "Perfect match, just like I thought."

The blue eyes narrow a little as Elsa frowns. "Match of what?" she wonders.

"The color." Anna reaches past her to gently pluck a single petal, which she then holds up. "Of this," she says, and touches the petal to Elsa's lips. "To these."

From behind the rose petal, Elsa just gives her this really, really gentle look, as if Anna said something so unbearably  _right_  that she can't help herself. "I can think of a better match," she then whispers almost conspiratorially, and there's a tiny little upwards tug at the corner of her mouth.

"Oh?" Anna uses the end of the petal to tickle her chin. "Of what?"

Cool fingers catch her own and carefully pull them down a little. "Of these," Elsa says, and points to her own lips before stroking a fingertip over Anna's. "To these."

And there's this just... godawful  _giddy_  feeling in Anna's stomach, as if a baker's dozen of butterflies moved in without her even noticing and are now flapping their wings in ways that make her want to squirm and laugh and just hop up and down and squeal into her hands like a little kid. It borders on being absolutely mortifying, and she really should examine why she's enjoying it as much as she is.

"Huh," is what she says, however, and somehow – somehow – manages to frown and purse her lips instead of just grinning from ear to ear. "I don't know..." She shifts the petal from the hand Elsa's holding and into her free one, and then trails it over Elsa's cheek. "I think you should check. Just to make sure."

Those lips are far softer than any rose, and judging by the smile she can feel when they meet her own and a familiar touch curls around her waist, that's something Elsa's only happy to remind her of. And she's right, of course, when she says that their mouths fit together perfectly, because it doesn't matter what angle their heads are canted, or whether their lips are closed or parted when Anna's hand settles on Elsa's cheek. Even when it's clumsy (which is happening less and less as time passes) they usually just end up giggling, because there's just something so  _right_  about being with Elsa in this way.

The main challenge is learning how to keep contact like this light and not letting themselves get carried away, but they're getting there, too, and are only a little out of breath when they part, although the petal in Anna's hand is admittedly looking a little worse for wear.

"Whoops," she mutters as she tries to straighten it back out, but smiles when Elsa kisses her cheek and their lips end up brushing again, right out there in the open. "Well, clearly you're way too distracting," she accuses jokingly. "See what you made me do? "

"Sorry," Elsa responds, and while she doesn't sound anything of the sort when she captures the petal between her own fingers, she does resolve the issue in typical, ingenious fashion; by smoothing out the fragile leaf with an equally fragile layer of ice, and then finally encasing the whole thing in a perfect sphere of colorless crystal, which she offers to Anna with a smile. "Better?"

And those breathless moments aren't lessening in frequency in any way, Anna decides. If anything, the reverse is true.

xXxXx

It's a bare week and a half after their first night together that they're split apart, and it's all thanks to a backhanded compliment from Elsa's council of advisers. Or maybe it's due to Anna displaying her competency a little  _too_  well in the weeks previous. Either way, she's heading to Midheim for what's probably going to be a week-long visit with an additional three days of travel either way, to meet the populace and get political and show how the capital isn't ignoring the outskirts.

And Anna's glad that she isn't just being viewed as 'the spare' anymore (the first time she used that phrase to describe herself in Elsa's presence, the entire room frosted over). She likes that she's being judged on her own merits and that the council is comfortable sending her when Elsa admittedly has plenty on her own plate already, even if she isn't entirely happy about being separated from her for an extended period of time when the romance between them is still as new as it is.

Elsa doesn't like it either, but at the same time, she's well aware of the responsibilities involved with the stations they've been born into. So she doesn't say anything outright – at least not to anyone other than Anna – but her eyes, as ever, speak volumes.

"Hey." This time Anna is the one to tilt Elsa's chin up, once they're alone in her room and she's settled a well-waxed cloak around her shoulders to keep dry in the rains outside; at least until she's inside the carriage that people are insisting on her traveling in. "It's okay, Elsa. It's a compliment, you know?"

"It's an  _enormous_  compliment," Elsa corrects softly from her seat in one of the chairs by the crackling fire, and then draws her down for a gentle kiss. "That doesn't mean that I won't miss you."

"I know." Anna follows the tug and gives the end of her cloak a little flap with one hand so she ends up sitting as directly in Elsa's lap as she can, with familiar arms winding loosely around her waist and the light nuzzle of Elsa's nose against her temple. "I'll miss you too," she promises softly, and strokes the backs of her fingers over a smooth cheek as their lips brush again. "But at least it's only for two weeks, right?"

"Mm." Elsa is nodding – there's even a smile tugging at her lips – but her eyes aren't agreeing with what she's saying, and a very vital part of Anna aches for the muted sadness she sees there.

So she just hugs her, and stays exactly where she is until the minute she has to leave.

xXxXx

The nights spent away from Elsa are officially the most miserable ones in Anna's life so far, and she doesn't really understand why for a while, because it isn't as if they've actually slept side by side. She realizes on the fourth night, however, (her first one in Midheim), that what she's missing the most is the knowledge that she can find Elsa by doing nothing more than walking down the hall and knocking on a door.

It's worst at night, too. The days – much like the weeks where they weren't talking – are too busy for her to sink into her own thoughts. Anna's pretty sure that she's met every single person in the entire town by the time her first five days away from Arendelle come to an end, and she has the distinct feeling that maybe she's getting through everything faster than expected. The local council certainly seems to be scrambling to keep up, but then again, they probably didn't expect her to spend the better parts of her nights doing paperwork.

She can't sleep, so she might as well do something productive. When she runs out of papers to read or lists to write, she starts drawing; tiny little scenes that Elsa would undoubtedly trace out a lot better than Anna ever could, but ones she wants to capture anyway, in her own hand. Ones she remembers chiefly because they're what she was looking at whenever she missed her sister so strongly that it just couldn't be ignored.

By the time her fifth day in Midheim (eighth away from the castle) is over, Anna's done pretty much everything there is for her to do here; good thing, too, because she has a two-inch stack of drawings and she's feeling more and more unsettled by the day. She misses Elsa as if she was a physical part of her, and the thought of spending even one more night away from her is... no. Just no. One of them did have to be here and she knows that she's achieved a lot that couldn't be done from home, but she's ready to leave, and leave  _now_ , even if it's late.

It takes the dozen guards that traveled with her barely a quarter hour to be ready, and then almost an hour on top of that for Anna to argue her way out of the carriage and onto a horse.

"We'll make better time that way," she insists stubbornly, and sets her hands on her hips as she stares up at the tall, blonde lieutenant. "And I assure you, I can ride as well as any of you."

Camping – actual camping the way the soldiers do - is uncomfortable to say the least, but she manages because it's getting her home that much faster. It's also surprisingly fun to spend hours on horseback in the middle of the small group of men her own age, and a little startling when even the lieutenant starts deferring to her out of actual respect rather than due to her title, but she guesses that it's because she really is keeping up with them. More than that, she's  _leading_  them. She knows the faster way to the capital because she heard the original rider from Midheim describe it that day in the throne room, and she  _is_  perfectly capable of staying in the saddle for the entire day, of not caring about rain and wind and muddy clothing. She's even capable of sleeping in the saddle; not that she's doing a lot of it, since she's feeling more and more awake the closer they get.

It's just past midnight two days later (53 hours since Midheim) when they cross into the capital under the cover of drizzling rains and a liberal coating of mud, and Anna has to repeatedly force herself to let the horse beneath her walk across the shimmering cobblestones instead of kicking her heels and sending it barreling towards the castle at a full gallop and waking up the entire city. She's a mess, and knows that much when they make it into the front courtyard and even Kai has to squint before he recognizes her. She's more of a mess when she leaves poor Kai to deal with the dozen of filthy, exhausted men and horses, not to mention the muddy, sopping bootprints she's leaving everywhere as she takes every single staircase two, three steps at a time.

She doesn't ask anyone about the queen's whereabouts as she jogs down one lamplit hall after the other (not that there's a lot of people  _to_  ask, given the hour), because she already knows exactly where to find her. They deal with separation in the same way; react to it the same way. Neither of them can sleep, and both of them look to work for a distraction. But she does manage to slow to a walk before she reaches the study.

She never missed Kristoff like this. Never felt like she wasn't getting enough air when she couldn't see his face or hear his voice; never rode for over two days just to see him that much sooner, and never felt as if the very breath was stolen from her lungs when she did set eyes on him after a long absence.

But that's exactly how she feels when she slips into Elsa's study, and finally sees perfect, alabaster skin, starlight-colored hair and eyes clearer than even the most flawless of gems. She gets a particularly good look at the latter of those because Elsa is positively  _goggling_  at her, but she's also smiling and standing and then Anna is across the room and in her arms and  _God,_  it feels like she's a dried up sponge suddenly tossed into warm, steaming waters.

"You need a bath," Elsa tells her, but smirks when she glances down at Anna's admittedly muddy body, which is curled intimately up with her own. "I suppose we both do, now."

Anna smiles, and then smiles wider when she wipes at a streak of mud on Elsa's cheek and only manages to make it worse. She's exhausted, filthier than she can ever remember being, sore all over, winded and windblown and thoroughly soaked, but she's never felt better than she does right in this moment. Her fingers make fresh, muddy lines in Elsa's hair when she pulls her in, and when their lips meet, the kiss tastes of rain and horses and papers and ink and  _Elsa_.

Elsa, whose blue eyes are absolutely lit up from within; whose arms just pull her closer - mud and all - whose mouth moves so sweetly against her own and whose cool fingers warm her from the inside out when they slip under Anna's sodden cloak and stroke her back. And it hurts, somewhere in her chest, to look at her. To hold her, to kiss her, and to see her smile the way she only ever does for Anna. To inhale the scent of her soap and feel the silken texture of her skin; to hear the low, deep noise she makes when Anna sucks and then bites at her lower lip, and to feel the heat of her exhales when they finally part enough to breathe.

It hurts, but it's the sweetest ache she could ever imagine. And Anna  _knows_.

"I love you," she whispers against those lips, into those eyes, and her heart leaps in her chest when Elsa first freezes and then - impossibly - tightens her hold and kisses her harder than she ever has before. Her heart is pounding against Anna's ribs and there's these tiny, helpless little sounds escaping her while Anna just holds on and tries to keep up, and then they're both laughing and smiling and maybe crying a little, too. "I love you so much."

xXxXx

Work – even paperwork – really doesn't feel like anything of the sort when Elsa's around. Anna can be reading through the dullest information ever written down (new records are set on a weekly basis), but all she has to do is look up and meet Elsa's eyes, and then they kind of make faces at each other and smirk, and just like that, it's fun. As long as neither of them have meetings – because Anna has those too, now that the council isn't ignoring her anymore – they usually both end up working in Elsa's study, or in the one Anna's been given as a direct result of the new responsibilities she's taken on.

They get a surprising amount of work done, too, even if they also end up taking a lot of breaks; ones that tend to leave them both winded and sometimes more than a little flushed, because Elsa is thoroughly distracting especially when she isn't trying to be, and there are a  _lot_  of books in the library. Ones on all subjects, and Anna usually ends up spending at least half an hour a day reading some of them, even if that could probably count as self-torture.

She wants Elsa in the worst way, and while it's reassuring beyond belief to know that she isn't alone in that, it's also extremely frustrating at times. Not because Anna knows that she's going to have to make the first move; that's just because Elsa's older and protective and doesn't want to push, and the thought of seducing her somehow is actually kind of a turn-on (and maybe a little intimidating, because Anna is not a seductive kind of person). No, her frustration comes from trying to figure out a right time – or a right _er_  one, at least - because she doesn't want planning and pressure and time for way too many nerves to build up, but she also doesn't want it to happen the way it almost did the very first time they even  _slept in the same bed_ , because that's just too fast and she'd honestly like them to have the entire night ahead of them instead of a couple of hours.

Somewhere in between those two extremes would be nice, and now Anna has to start reading at the top of the page, because she's five paragraphs in and doesn't even remember what this report is supposed to be about in the first place.

Damn it.

It's good that they're taking this time to simply be in love, because Anna is learning a lot; both theoretical from the books she finds, and more practical stuff from their breaks. She knows now that Elsa definitely has a thing for seeing her just a little defenseless with how she likes to pin her wrists, and that she also has a distinct, possessive streak, given how dark her eyes get when she sees a mark of her own making on Anna's skin.

It's probably also good that it's getting colder, because Anna's constantly wearing high collars these days.

As for Anna herself, she's learned that she finds Elsa incredibly alluring when she's either flustered or taking charge (or, well, anything in between, but mainly those two). Flustered Elsa makes her heart race for a variety of reasons, like how she blushes and sometimes tries to hide her eyes but still peeks, and how her reacting so strongly to something as simple as Anna tugging her collar away makes her feel. If Anna keeps prodding at her (teasing her) long enough, she also leads directly to a far more dominant Elsa, who never hides her eyes but can set Anna on fire with just a look, and whose voice is low and husky and liberally used from very, very close by until Anna's scarcely able to even think.

So really, they both seem to react the strongest to roughly the same things; being power _ful_  and power _less_  with each other. Must be a family thing, Anna decides with a small smile, and then sets the report down and peers over at Elsa, because she isn't getting a single thing done, anyway.

Elsa is; or at least she seems to be, with the way she's frowning just a little bit at the paper in her hands and looking off to a wide, open book every now and then as if to double-check something. She's also wearing green rather than blue or purple, and Anna is pretty sure that she herself has been smirking so hard all day that she's never going to be able to stop again.

 _Mine_.

She definitely understands why Elsa likes seeing her in blue, and yeah, okay, so she has a bit of a possessive side, too. And maybe she's a little bored and Elsa's way too beautiful, because it doesn't take many more minutes before she's yanking back her sister's chair in exchange for a small sound of surprise, and then seating herself on the desk directly in front of Elsa and using her booted feet to tug her – and the chair – pretty much back into place.

"Hi there," Anna drawls.

"Hi?" Elsa settles back in her eat and quirks a single, amused eyebrow, along with the corner of her mouth. "I hope you know that you're sitting on the viscount of Caledon."

Anna shifts until she can peer over her own shoulder and see a corner of the topmost letter. Then she smirks and leans forward until their faces are almost touching, with her fingers curling around the edge of the desk.

"I don't hear him complaining," she says in the sultriest voice she can manage, and apparently that's pretty good, because  _damn_  that blush is going to drive her to distraction. "But I guess I am putting a-" She wiggles a little in her seat, and grins. "-  _stopper_  on your work."

"That's one way of phrasing it," Elsa mutters, and scrubs a hand over her face as if she's trying to wipe away the redness.

"Ah." Anna nods a few times, and purses her lips to hold back a smile. "Well, I'm sorry. I'll just get out of your way again."

She doesn't even manage to get her boots onto the floor before Elsa's kissing her. So maybe she can be at least  _sort of_  alluring, too.

xXxXx

"Where did all of this come from?"

"This came from the kitchens," Anna replies; answering the question at face value as she fishes out a bowl of cut fruits and sets it down. "Well, pretty much everything in the basket did. The wood came from the forest, I guess. The rug I'm not sure about but I think it's Coronan, and the blankets were part of a trade shipment from Dunbroch, or something like that. Please don't ask me about the stones or the floorboards, though."

She can practically  _hear_  Elsa rolling her eyes, and does her utmost not to grin. "Thank you, Princess Literal."

"You're most welcome, Queen Sarcasm," Anna returns with infinite politeness, and then emits a halfway-strangled sort of gurgle when she's grabbed around the waist and unceremoniously hauled backwards. "Hey!" she laughs, and squirms a little in Elsa's hold when there are soft lips nipping at the skin behind her ear. "That tickles!"

"Everything I do to you tickles," Elsa murmurs against her temple, and sounds quite pleased with that fact.

Anna, meanwhile, is sucking in a slow breath when the hands on her waist slide up and curl over the edge of her ribs. "Not  _everything_ ," she breathes a little unevenly, and then leans back against Elsa's warmth when familiar arms slip fully around her. "What was the question?"

They're in Anna's room, both in night clothes and on a thick rug in front of a roaring fire in deference to the first sting of night frost in the air outside. Spread out in front of them is a small variety of finger foods – most of them unhealthy – and there are two small containers sitting on the warm stones by the edge of the fireplace. It is, Anna muses as she feels Elsa shift and is then covered by a layer of soft, patterned wool, almost stereotypically romantic. But she had to start somewhere, right?

"The question  _was_  where all of this comes from," Elsa responds dryly. "But since that only got me backtalk, I'll rephrase. What are you hoping to achieve with all this?"

"Nothing," Anna sighs, and captures one of Elsa's hands. "Or, well. Nothing, um.."

"Sexual?" Elsa waits for her to nod, and then Anna can feel her chuckle, even if she can't hear it. And she's blushing, isn't she? "You  _are_  allowed to say the word, you know," she teases. "All you have to do is open your mouth an-"

"So help me, if you make any references to letting  _anything_  go, I'm going to smack you."

Elsa just laughs. Brat. "I'm sorry," she says, and once again sounds nothing of the kind as her fingers twitch faintly in Anna's grasp and her breath washes over Anna's ear. "You really are just entirely too adorable."

Well. 'Adorable' isn't in any way the same thing as 'seductive', 'alluring' or even 'sexy', but it's a start, isn't it? Anna can work with 'adorable'; especially since she finds Elsa adorable too, a lot of the time. Like right now, where she can turn her head to see what might just be the goofiest grin ever, combined with sparkling blue eyes and perfect, white teeth.

And soft, pink lips. Very close by.

By the time they break apart, Elsa is leaning back against the side of the bed with Anna straddling her lap, and they're both looking more than just a little rumpled. And Anna's severely annoyed with the way her body is thrumming because at this rate, Elsa's going to think that all she wants is to ravage her so she really needs to get a grip, and she's mentally berating herself right up until the point where she notices... a few things. Like how Elsa's shaking again, and how she's tracing a day-old mark on Anna's skin with a single fingertip, and how flushed her face grows when her eyes follow the outline of Anna's body through the seafoam-green silk.

Ah.

"Elsa?" A pause while she waits for those blue eyes to lift to her face, and she can see her sister struggling to control the rhythm of her breathing. "When did you first realize that you wanted me? Like this."

"That I wanted you, or that I was in love with you?" Elsa questions unevenly, and settles her hands on Anna's knees after a few seconds of apparently trying to decide which spot is the safest. "They're two different answers."

"Both, then." Anna brushes a small handful of pale hair back, and feels a steadying hand on her waist when she leans to the side and pulls the bowl of fruit over. "In whatever order." She captures a chunk of melon, and holds it to her sister's lips as she straightens back up. "Bite."

After a brief hike of one eyebrow, Elsa does, and then seems to forget all about chewing as she watches Anna pop the remaining bit of fruit into her own mouth. She doesn't even notice Anna watching her, because her eyes are entirely too fixated on how Anna sucks a stray bit of juice off the side of her own thumb, and Anna is trying but utterly failing to contain her grin when she folds her arms across (below) her chest, and watches the blue eyes drop to follow the motion. It's just really, really nice to know that she apparently affects Elsa exactly as much as Elsa affects her.

"Up here, tiger," she teases, and then starts giggling helplessly when Elsa all but snaps to attention and ends up sending her a look that reminds her more than anything of a little kid caught with their fist in a nice, big cookie jar. "So does that mean it's a recent thing, or...?"

Those blue eyes are positively  _glowering_  at her, but Elsa's blushing too hard for the expression to be anything even approaching intimidating. "Yes and no," she mutters, and glares into the fire. "I realized... God, years ago, but... I didn't really know how intense it had grown until my coronation."

"The actual ceremony, or the party?" Anna wonders, more seriously now as she turns the pale head back to face her with a gentle hand.

"Yes," Elsa responds simply, and her lips are quirking a little. "That was a very, very long day for me, but at least I learned how to hide my less...  _sisterly_  impulses."

"Maybe a little too well," Anna mutters before she manages to stop herself, and then curses softly when there's a very curious look settling on Elsa's face.

On the other hand, it's probably better than she's honest, isn't it?

"Look," she ends up sighing, but takes care to keep her voice soft and not angry. "I'm not gonna claim to know why you put so much effort into controlling yourself around me, but I'm guessing it's a combination of habit and not wanting to... startle me, somehow. Right?" A nod of the pale head. "Right. So I get that that's why you're always waiting for me to push the boundaries between us, for me to sort of give you the go ahead, and I appreciate that; I really do. It's just a very lonely feeling sometimes, because I end up thinking that I'm always attacking you like some sort of hormonal beast, and you just kind of follow along to not hurt my feelings."

"Anna..." Elsa's eyes are aching, and her hands come up to cup her face. "That's not-"

"-true, I know," she interrupts gently, and clasps the cool hands before bringing them back down and cradling them in her own. "Logically and emotionally, I know it's not true. But mentally-" She taps a finger at her own temple, and grins a little. "Mentally, I'd like you to- start something. Sometimes. Because I'm very good at doubting my appeal to you, even if I know it's stupid."

Elsa is just sort of... breathing through her nose – very calmly and very controlled - with her gaze locking on their entwined fingers when she bends her neck a little. And Anna spends several moments listening to the fire crackle and chewing at her own lips and trying not to take back what she said even if Elsa seems to be kind of hurting, because it was the truth.

Then those blue eyes are back on hers, and they're so dark and intense that just looking into them makes Anna's breath hitch.

"Every single time I saw you at the coronation - even in  _church_  - I wanted to pull you into the nearest, abandoned room and rip that gown off you with my teeth," Elsa whispers. "When you came to the North Mountain for me, it was all I could do to not just push you back against a wall and-" She cuts herself off with a soft groan that makes her eyes slip shut, and her hands clench in Anna's hold before she sighs. "Trust me, Anna, you've  _always_  appealed to me. I just- it was so much more than I could handle."

"Oh," Anna breathes. It's a weird combination of feelings, because there's guilt for making Elsa upset, but also a mixture of joy and satisfaction at having confirmed – in actual words – that Elsa wants Anna as badly and easily as Anna wants her. On top of that, there's a good amount of arousal that sets heat to rising in her belly and a faint flush to spreading over her skin, because although Anna knows that she wouldn't have been open to any...  _advances_... from her in either of those actual scenarios, something about imagining them with the way things are now...

Maybe she should have that gown remade. And find the stuff she wore in Elsa's ice palace. Later, though, because right now she's surprised that she can even think coherently with how those eyes are burning into her own.

"I wanted you –  _want_  you – so much that I'm terrified of scaring you," Elsa is saying now, with her voice low and growing more husky with nearly every word. "There are so many things I want to do to you that I barely even know where to begin, but more than anything, I don't want to risk you pulling away because this suddenly becomes too intense for you, understand?" When Anna nods, she sighs. "I never meant to make it seem as if I was simply following your lead, though, and for that, I'm truly sorry." There's a pause, and then her hands are slipping from Anna's to instead settle on her waist, with cool fingers creeping under the hem of her top and onto hot skin. "But I'd very much like to show you exactly what you do to me by merely existing. If you'll let me."

Anna is sort of having to actively remember how to breathe at this point. There is the faint brush of fingers against the skin around her navel and she's never  _felt_  Elsa touch her there before, so if this simple, tiny thing is doing this much to her body, she can't even imagine what that touch will do to her when it reaches other areas. Below the skin, there's the conflicting sensations of both arousal and nerves and also a touch of pride, because the moment is  _here_  and  _now_  and  _Elsa_  is the one initiating it, and Anna would really like to be as eloquent as her, but she's barely able to hold herself upright as it is.

So she just wets her dry lips and nods. "Okay."

And somewhere, even as Elsa kisses her and the familiar taste of her lips mixes with that of honeydew melon, she knows that there's a lot of potential for awkwardness. Neither of them have done this before, so they really don't have a clue what they're doing outside of theoretical knowledge and what they've learned respectively over the past, few months. Counter to that, however, is what Elsa can do to her with the brush of a single finger over the curve of her rear, and what  _she_  can apparently do to Elsa in return just by gasping and pressing closer until their upper bodies are brushing, too.

"If I do something you don't enjoy," Elsa is murmuring against the underside of her jaw, and Anna can feel her fingers working over the buttons holding her pajama shirt closed. "Tell me. Alright?"

"Mm. Uh..." She needs her brain to think right now, so she tugs at Elsa's hair until those very distracting lips aren't nearly as close or as distracting anymore. "As long as that goes both ways." That earns her a half-startled, half-confused pause, and Anna rolls her eyes. "Don't give me that look," she grouses a little breathlessly. "I'm having my wicked way with you tonight, too."

Elsa chuckles and pulls her in again at that, and they're having a little trouble keeping the kiss going simply because they're both smiling too widely, so it ends up being more of a mix of kissing and laughing softly and just breathing as Anna's shirt slips off of her shoulders and Elsa pulls her closer, but it's sweet and warm and somehow not nervous at all. Not even when Elsa's hands are slipping over Anna's naked torso, although there is some maneuvering to figure out because Anna is bound and determined to get Elsa's top off, and preferably before she's rendered so breathless that she can't take part in the process herself.

The first time their upper bodies meet skin to skin, Elsa's moan is so low and drawn out that Anna shivers bodily. Then she chuckles a little when Elsa's mouth latches onto the skin of her neck, but it's cut off when she realizes that this is a new spot – the one she's found to be hypersensitive on Elsa, as a matter of fact – and that it's a very sensitive one on her, too, to the point where all she can do is mewl and arch and grab on to Elsa's head and hair and shoulders and just remind herself to keep breathing through the thousands of tiny, pleasurable little shocks heading straight for her gut.

And  _God_ , the look in Elsa's eyes when she breaks away and looks up. They're flawless gems backlit by the clearest flame, and Anna is sinking into them – into the  _want_  in them – and can see something deep inside those eyes almost clench when Elsa's fingers glide over the seam of her pants and Anna's hips jerk in reaction, because although she was aware of the heat pooling there, it's not until she feels the cool touch that she realizes  _how much_  heat there really is.

"Up," Elsa murmurs against her lips, then, and her hands are clasping Anna's hips and pulling until she notices that Anna is just sort of  _staring_  at her. "What?"

"You're kidding me, right?" Anna blurts. "You want me to  _get up?"_

"...yes?"

Anna very nearly swears at her, but just licks her lips and sighs instead. "Remember that one dish the kitchen made for dessert last week? The jelly-thing? Colorful, pretty, kinda wobbly?"

Elsa looks mostly as if she just asked her to flap her arms and fly to the moon. "Wha- yes, of course I remember but what does th-"

"That's what my legs are right now!" Anna exclaims, and then groans when Elsa blinks and snickers. "Really. Standing is very much a non-option at the moment."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Elsa says, and if that smug expression wasn't so cute on her, Anna would smack it right off. Instead, she bites the soft skin on the side of her throat, and smirks when she feels the full-body jerk that earns her.

"You do that," she murmurs, and spends a few moments sucking at the skin before laving it with a swipe of her tongue and biting down again in exchange for a hoarse gasp.

" _God_ , Anna!"

"I keep telling you to pick one," Anna mumbles into her neck, and grins when Elsa's body jerks again - this time from a laugh.

"D- don't make me laugh at the same time," Elsa pleads breathlessly. "My head can't figure it out."

"Aww." Anna pouts, but relents and pulls back. "Spoilsport," she accuses, and drops a light kiss to Elsa's mouth before tumbling – pretty much – off of her lap and getting shakily to her feet. She keeps one hand on the bed for balance, though, and that's a good thing, because when she glances down at Elsa, she's sitting there flushed and messy-haired and  _topless_  and Anna just kind of blanks out completely.

 _Wow_.

"Are you alright?" Elsa questions; shifting onto her knees and settling her hands back on Anna's silk-clad hips before brushing her lips against the skin just below her navel. And Anna just nods and runs a hand through the pale hair, because she really has no words at the moment – at least none that aren't expletives, and those really don't feel appropriate – so she just focuses on breathing and keeping herself upright as Elsa's fingers hook in her waistband and tug, and a few seconds later she's fully naked and sitting on the edge of the bed.

"You too," she says, and slips her thumbs into the cobalt silk encircling Elsa's hips when her sister rises. There's so much more smooth, moon-pale skin beneath the fabric that she hasn't even touched yet, but before Anna can correct that grievous error, Elsa's hands are on her shoulders and gently pushing her back onto the mattress.

Then Anna frowns, because instead of climbing onto the bed with her, Elsa is lowering herself back to the floor. "You're not-"

A single shake of the pale head stops her, and the feeling of cool hands sliding up her thighs is making it very difficult to hold herself up on her elbows. Then those hands are grasping her hips and tugging her forward a little, and Anna's breath is hitching again because she kind of thinks that she knows where this is going.

"Remember what I asked you to do earlier?" Elsa says, and keeps her eyes locked with Anna's even as she nips at the skin where her thigh joins the rest of her body.

"Uh-huh," Anna breathes, and twists her fingers in the sheets. "Tell you if you- do something I don't like."

"Good." Elsa smiles and presses a lingering kiss to her hipbone. "Keep that in mind, alright?"

And Anna  _was_  going to reply to that – if only with a nod - but Elsa is sucking at the skin on the inside of her thigh and there's warm breath rushing over the apex of her legs and she really can't  _think_  right now. She can't even  _look_ , because meeting Elsa's eyes is intense enough as it is, and doing so at the first flick of that tongue – not to mention seeing those eyes slip shut and hearing Elsa groan – is enough to make her just collapse bonelessly onto the covers for all of a split-second. Then Elsa... moves, or shifts or  _something_ , and she's hitting a spot that has Anna arching right back up with her hands flying up above her head to grab at the sheets or the covers or anything in reach, and  _now_  she's swearing. Liberally.

It's almost too much, because Elsa is definitely trying a little bit of everything and Anna knows that she's supposed to give her some sort of clue about what works and what doesn't, but  _everything is working_  so she's just hoping that her physical response is enough because she really isn't able to offer much more. It's complete and total sensory overload to the point of actually being a little frightening, because it feels like the bed, the floor,  _the castle_  is dropping out from under her and she can't hold on to anything that isn't already either of those.

When Elsa's lips wrap around that one spot and suck, Anna rises up until the only parts of her touching the mattress is her head and backside, and there's a hoarse, completely involuntary cry ripping from her throat and she's falling and there's nothing to hold on to and it's  _toomuchtoomuchtoomuch!_

" _Fuck_ , Elsa – stop!" She grabs onto the pale hair with one hand and jerks away, chest heaving to the point of almost sobbing. "Stop, stop, it's... God, just too much."

"Alright, alright." Elsa's voice is a little tight and she sounds worried, but her hands are gentle as she strokes Anna's thighs and waist slowly – soothingly – and places light, lingering kisses on her skin as she moves onto the bed. "I'm sorr-"

"Don't-" She sucks in a sharp breath, and pulls Elsa down for a kiss when she's close enough. The taste is different, she decides, but not exactly unpleasant. "-you dare apologize. It just got- really intense for a bit and that- was kind of scary."

"Okay," Elsa whispers, and kisses her again as she settles next to her on the mattress, with one hand stroking slow circles on the skin above Anna's navel. "Okay. Do you want to stop? Completely, I mean."

She really is being unbearably sweet and all kinds of understanding, and yet all Anna wants to do at that question is to swear at her. But she manages not to, and makes a frustrated, little sound in the back of her throat instead.

"Elsa, I love you, but if you stop this now, I swear I'm going to get you when you least expect it." The low, surprised chuckle makes her smile, and she brushes a shaking touch over Elsa's cheek. "No, I don't want to stop. I just need you close. Okay?"

"Definitely okay," Elsa smiles, and Anna lifts herself up a little when she feels a hand trying to worm its way under her back. Then they're kissing again – slow and soft – and Anna's mind is kind of whirling at the sheer amount of bare, silky skin brushing intimately against her own pretty much from head to toe. It's  _so much_  – but not  _too much_ , now - from the faint tickle of Elsa's hair over the top of her chest to the curve of her hip under Anna's palm. From the knee that gently nudges her own further apart, and finally to the cool touch that starts off light as a feather, then grows firmer and almost robs her of breath entirely when it dips into the wetness between her thighs and  _Elsa's_  body tightens in response.

Anna drops her head back and whimpers because that's about the only thing she  _can_  do; that, and curl one hand into Elsa's hair while barely noticing the trace of soft lips and warm breathing over the skin on her cheek. She almost gets enough control over her own mental faculties to speak, but then Elsa is entering her with first one finger and then – after a pause and a low, pleading moan from Anna – another, and everything else is just completely irrelevant.

Elsa is holding her close with one arm around her shoulders and whispering softly in her ear, and Anna doesn't have the faintest idea what she's saying, but she's clinging to the sound of her voice; to the feel of her skin. She wants to touch in return - to make Elsa feel what she's feeling herself - but that's just going to have to wait because all she can do right now is focus on those long, elegant,  _magical_  fingers working and twisting and spreading inside her. They're fluttering, almost searching, and when they hit something that has Anna snapping her head back and crying out, she figures – somewhere very far off – that they've probably found it.

"Look at me," Elsa whispers, and Anna manages to open her eyes for all of one second before Elsa's thumb hits something else. Then it's all she can do to grab onto Elsa's shoulder and  _breathe_ , but there's a careful hand tangling in her hair and supporting her skull, followed by the feeling of smooth skin against her forehead and warm breath against her mouth and chin. "Look at me, Anna. Let me see you. Please."

 _Please_. Anna forces her eyes open again because anything for her, and all she can see is endless, perfect blue in every shade imaginable and it's beautiful -  _she_  is beautiful – and she wants to tell her that, but there's something overwhelmingly powerful building inside of her and it's all she can do to hold on for dear life as that something rises, rises,  _rises_ with every stroke of those fingers, until all Anna knows is Elsa's touch, Elsa's eyes, Elsa's skin and warmth and love and Elsa, Elsa,  _Elsa_.

She manages to see something in those beautiful eyes tighten in sympathy; notices the first flutter of a flash of heat that starts low in her body and then explodes outwards. She realizes that her fingers are digging into perfect, pale skin, and she thinks that she might be yelling something, but then there's just warmth, and light, and never-ending oceans of blue.

When the world starts to come back into focus, the first thing Anna feels is Elsa's fingers slowly, tenderly slipping through her hair. She's on her side now, and that has to be the case for both of them because there's an arm wrapped around her back and warm, soft skin pressed against her entire front. That skin is also the first thing she sees, but the second – when she shifts a little and tilts her head – is those flawless, blue eyes, and that sight is enough to bring tears to her own because Elsa is looking at her like every one of her dreams and wishes and high-flying fantasies just came true all at once.

"Those better be happy tears," Elsa tells her softly when she wipes them away with a gentle touch, and Anna laughs weakly but nods, because although she can tell that Elsa means it to be teasing, she also picks up on the undercurrent of fear and knows that she can't really fault her.

She can, however, reassure, so she angles her head to catch those soft lips with her own, and smiles against them when Elsa just surrenders immediately and sinks into the kiss with a slow, contented sigh.

 _This is right_ , her heart sings, and she feels her own name vibrate against her lips when she kisses and sucks and  _bites_  along the side of Elsa's throat. Her hands are mapping out the smoothest, most perfect expanse of skin anyone could ever dream of, and then she's the one hovering over Elsa. She's the one dipping her head to a soft, generous chest while long, slim fingers twist in her hair, and the one to look for and pick up on both physical and verbal cues, because what works for her doesn't necessarily have to work for Elsa. It's a little clumsy sometimes, just like before, but it's also exploration and learning and soft moans interspersed with tender touches, and it feels warm and exhilarating and maybe kind of nerve-wracking but... it's a  _you and me_  becoming an  _us_.

" _Anna_ ," Elsa breathes tightly when her touch grows as intimate as it can get, and Anna can't _think_ when Elsa says her name like that and she kind of needs to keep at least part of her brain working, so she grabs the back of her head and catches those lips with her own.

The kiss lasts until the moment when her thumb circles and then carefully presses down; then Elsa's head falls back while a high, rasping moan fills the air and sends tingles spreading over Anna's skin, and she's so enraptured with the sounds she can draw from her that she almost  _growls_  at the sight of Elsa biting her lip in an effort to muffle them.

"Let me hear you," she whispers hoarsely, and shivers at the gasp she gets when she nips at a painfully erect nipple. Those eyes –  _oh God, those eyes_  – are wide open and dilated and sapphire blue and hazy, and when they settle on her face and sharpen, something about what they see there makes Elsa shudder. She's flushed and arching and sweaty and so,  _so_  perfect against (beneath,  _around_ ) Anna, with her lips red and swollen and her fingers tangling in Anna's hair as they kiss again, and she is  _hers_.

It's primal and sensual and an absolute, almost animalistic  _need_  to see Elsa just completely shatter under her touch, and something in her heart is clenching so hard that it almost hurts when she twists her fingers and sucks at the extra sensitive spot below one ear at the same time, because Elsa yells and bucks so suddenly and so strongly that Anna can barely hold on.

 _This_ , she knows without question,  _is passion_ , and when surprisingly strong hands are grasping at her shoulders, arms, waist, hips, the sheets or the headboard, when low keens and high-pitched cries set her own breaths to hitching, when her lips are claimed in an almost desperate kiss as Elsa arches sharply and presses closer,  _deeper_  as they move together, when she watches her strong, elegant, oh-so-unmatched but oh-so-human older sister go as taut as a bowstring and just completely, helplessly lose herself in the pleasure that  _Anna is bringing her_... that's when she truly knows that this is the most beautiful kind of perfection. And she dares, she  _fucking dares_  anyone to tell her otherwise.

Because this, Anna decides when they're both laughing and crying and kissing all at once until Elsa's gasping under her hands and mouth once more (she doesn't want to stop touching her - ever), she will protect until her dying breath. Again.

" _Anna!_ "

Always.

xXxXx

It started with a painting and two broken hearts. It ends with a moonlit bedroom and Anna's fingers trailing over Elsa's naked back.

Funny, she thinks with a smile and a kiss to a bare shoulder, how it feels so much more like a beginning.


	5. The Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings:  
> Icest (if that surprises you at this point, I really can't help you), smut, toys (see: ice dildo, because isn't that a rite of passage or something in this fandom?), mild possessiveness, biting, feels.
> 
> Also: POV switch – we're hearing things from Elsa's side now.

"Elsa..."

 _God_ , that voice. She groans softly into the smooth, fire-lit skin under her lips, feels the sharp movement of an inhalation under the warmth beneath her hands, and swirls her hips over and over until there's an abrupt, hitching gasp that makes the very core of her body tremble.

She is  _so_  perfect. Like a Grecian sculpture or a painstakingly recovered piece of Renaissance art, she will be - she  _must_  be - in some way, the image preserved for all of humanity to admire, because no one can ever be more perfect than Anna. It's in everything from the flex of her legs to the way their bodies mold together even when back to front; from how her hair spills over Elsa's shoulder when her head drops back, to how the curve of her rear nestles so perfectly in Elsa's lap.

They fit together as if they were made for each other; like pieces of a machine. A particularly well-oiled machine at this point, the raunchier side of her mind points out, but Elsa bats that thought away before she can do anything more than simply smile against Anna's skin. Not that they haven't previously ended up laughing together in moments like these, but right now she just wants to see, hear,  _feel_  Anna in her arms.

"I love you," she whispers against the shell of a warm ear, and nudges a few locks of fiery hair out of the way with her nose before nipping at the skin beneath it in exchange for a half-choked moan. "You're so beautiful, Anna. So perfect."

She's well aware that Anna probably isn't really hearing what she's saying at this point, because she's just that wonderfully lost. Elsa can feel her feet flexing and curling next to her own, and Anna is leaning back against her heavily, with the only thing really holding her upright being Elsa's arm around her ribs. Her bangs are plastered to her forehead, her eyes closed and her breathing harsh and shallow, and the hand she's got lifted up and back is tightening and relaxing in Elsa's hair with every tiny, slow thrust. There's the most beautiful, alluring flush extending down her neck and chest that Elsa's constantly tracing with her fingers, and whenever her touch moves low enough for her to brush over a sensitive breast or a straining nipple, Anna arches into her hand and mewls breathlessly.

It's slow and steady and sweet, and they both know that the languid pace won't bring either of them to release, but release isn't the point right now. This is just closeness and intimacy and  _love_ , because she's learned that Anna  _needs_  that closeness after thirteen years of separation; needs to feel Elsa wrapped around her, to be immersed in her touch and her voice and her scent and everything else, and whatever Anna needs, Elsa will die to provide if she has to. So she whispers and holds and strokes and kisses. She gives everything she can and then some, because impossibly, every time they're together like this, she manages to dig a little deeper in herself; finds a way to love Anna even more.

Anna, who's so much more than she ever sees herself as; who is all but worshiped by the people and the soldiers and Elsa herself and never really understands  _why_. Who is bright and sweet and has the most loving, most forgiving heart in the kingdom, if not the entire world. Whose natural curiosity makes her read and wonder and question by nature, and who is certainly the only person who could ever have convinced Elsa to even try crafting the appendage she's currently wielding – let alone get her at least somewhat comfortable with it - because this was initially way outside of her comfort zone, if only because she was (is) worried about hurting Anna in some manner.

It isn't a staple of theirs in the bedroom, but there's no denying that it can reach places inside Anna that Elsa's fingers simply can't; no two ways about how its use (after a few attempts and some partly awkward, partly funny learning for both of them) nearly always manages to send them into pleasurable oblivion almost at the same time. Much like now, with Anna somehow maneuvering herself around until they're facing each other and Elsa is actually lying on top of her, nestled safely between her legs. Elsa doesn't really notice how it happens, but she's always been very easily distracted whenever Anna is kissing her.

She groans at the sensation of knees settling over her own hips, and then again when she angles her lower body and Anna's back arches enough for her to slip an arm beneath her and hold her even tighter as their bodies slide against each other. There are warm hands cradling her face when they kiss again – just a light, repeating brush of lip over lip – and Anna's eyes are halfway open and look almost chocolate-brown in the firelight, but Elsa knows from experience that they're actually a brilliant, emerald green right now, because as much as they both need physical closeness first and foremost, Elsa also needs  _sight_  (because she rarely saw her) where Anna needs  _sound_ (because she rarely heard her).

"I love having you in my arms like this," she whispers against Anna's lips, and swallows the soft, answering moan with her own mouth while Anna's fingers tighten in her hair. "I still can't believe you're mine." She angles her hips down sharply, and while Anna's head snaps back and her eyes close in perfect concert with a breathless cry, they open again after mere seconds, and then her hands are pulling Elsa forward and down until their foreheads are touching and they're breathing into each other's mouths.

"I'm yours," Anna promises, and Elsa can see the love in her eyes even behind the haze of arousal. "Just like you're mine. It's only fair." Then they're smiling against each other's lips, and Anna's hands are slipping over her shoulder blades and onto her back, digging into the skin while her voice breaks as Elsa redoubles her pace and slips one hand between their bodies to circle her thumb at the apex of Anna's thighs.

God only knows how many times she dreamt of moments like this one, but none of them could ever compare to reality. Watching Anna come undone the way she does now, with her back arching and her heels digging into the mattress and her abs tightening under Elsa's hand while her nails bite at Elsa's skin... that is a more beautiful sight than she could ever imagine. There's a burst of almost-light in her eyes right in the moment when the orgasm washes over her, and the pleasure is intense enough that she doesn't even cry out as she usually does. Instead, the only audible sign is a sharp, hitched breath and long, low, hoarse whine that – when combined with the pressure against Elsa's own body – is more than enough to send her crashing over the edge as well. But she lands, as ever, safely in those deceptively slender arms, and feels the heart below her rib cage match her own beat for thundering beat, even as she disperses the phallus with a twitching, exhausted motion of her hand and finds her lips captured for a long, slow, breathless kiss.

Long moments of tender indulgence later, the erratic rhythm of Anna's breathing is settling bit by bit, and Elsa watches her wet her lips and stare almost thoughtfully up at the canopy above for several seconds. Then those still-dark eyes are locked on hers, and Anna's lips purse.

"I can't feel my legs," she says, very seriously, and all Elsa can do is let her forehead drop to a sweaty shoulder and snort out a laugh against the warm skin, even if it earns her a light, reproving swat. "Yeah, yuk it up, tiger."

"Mew." Elsa kisses the soft skin under her lips, and hums when she feels Anna's fingers slip through her hair. She remembers the exact moment when that nickname was born, the first time they woke up together in her bed those short months (and that entire lifetime) ago. She never really anticipated it sticking around, but it has, and while Elsa's never thought herself to be particularly catlike, she likes it. Right now, however, she runs a light touch along the back of Anna's thigh, and chuckles at the indignant squawk and the jump of the slender limb that earns her.

"You clearly felt  _that_ , so I think your legs are fine," she decides, and lifts herself onto her hands and knees with a smirk. "And you did come quite hard."

Anna gives her a definite  _look_ , and then Elsa has to rapidly lock her arms when fingers jab at the insides of her elbows and she almost collapses bodily on top of her sister. There are knees hooking over her hips again, and when she blinks, Anna is suddenly millimeters away; holding herself up on one arm only while a familiar hand slides down Elsa's front and two fingers enter her easily.

"You're very smug about that," Anna murmurs next to her ear, and all Elsa can do is moan brokenly, because she's still extremely sensitive and Anna knows every spot to hit by now and she's going  _directly for them_. "And that's fine – you have every right to be." Her lips are tracing that one patch of skin that never fails to send liquid fire hurtling through her veins, and Elsa is using all of her focus on just holding herself up, but she can feel her arms trembling already. "But in return, I get to see how fast I can make you fall apart around my fingers."

At this point, that turns out to be around half a minute.

"You're insatiable," Elsa breathes, once she's collapsed onto the bed and regained enough presence of mind to speak.

Anna – who's stretched out next to her now and holding her head up in one hand - gives her a long, head-to-toe-and-all-the-way-back-up glance, and grins. "Duh."

xXxXx

Elsa can just barely see the barracks courtyard from the window in her study. She's high enough above the ground that she has trouble making out anything but Anna's distinctive hair and the equally distinctive, bright red hood on her white cloak, but she's long since learned how to shape a curved lens out of ice, and now uses just that as a miniature, slightly blue-tinted telescope as she peers outside and smiles reflexively when she sees her sister do the same. Her smile only widens when Anna somehow seems to sense the eyes on her, and one hand slips behind her back as she turns away. She wears no gloves in spite of the wintery chill in the air, and the contrast of tanned skin against the back of the thick, white cloth makes it all the easier for Elsa to see the way her middle- and ring fingers curl towards her palm, while the remaining three fingers extend.

It's a sign that Elsa recognizes instantly; one Anna taught her after having learned it herself from one of the soldiers. And she's reasonably certain that at one point, she's just going to melt into a puddle of happily burbling goo.

_Oh, well. Blub, blub, blub._

"Your Majesty?" She turns to see Kai poking his head around the edge of the door, and the lens vanishes into a flutter of evaporating ice crystals at the faintest twitch of her finger. "Merely a reminder, but the council will be here shortly."

"Of course, Kai." Elsa gives him a smile. "Thank you. Tell the kitchen to prepare a light repast of some kind – seasonal, if possible – and have it brought up in an hour or so. I'll wager that everyone will be hungry at that point."

"Should coincide nicely with lunchtime, yes," the portly man agrees with a bow. "As you wish."

"Now if only it was that easy to get Anna to agree to something; such as getting up in the morning," Elsa murmurs once the door's closed again, and then shakes her head with a smile. Anna can be very...  _persuasive_ when she puts her mind to it (not that Elsa needs a lot of persuading to begin with), and so the day started a good deal later than intended and she's had to all but tear through her work just to keep her schedule on track. She's about caught up at this point, though, and as long as her upcoming session with the council doesn't run late, she might even have more than five minutes to herself before the next task crops up in the line.

Last official day of work before Christmas or not, she wouldn't care about starting it late even if her entire day snowballed from there. Waking up to Anna astride her and those lips leaving scorching trails over her bare skin had been... a very nice 'good morning'. One she still shivers pleasantly at the thought of, and one she wagers that she'll probably continue to shiver at for a while yet.

Of course, it's while she's lost herself in such thoughts that the dozen of councilmen enter, and she's  _so_  pleasantly distracted that she doesn't even notice their presence until one of them clears his throat.

"Are you well, My Queen?" Aaberg questions, and furrows his grizzled brows in concern. He's a stout, elderly man with a severely receded hairline and warm, dark eyes, who's been part of the royal council since her grandfather's time. "You seem a little flushed."

Not for the first time since her romantic involvement with Anna began, Elsa curses both her increasingly wandering mind and her pale complexion, and tries to will the sudden infusion of blood from her cheeks.

"I'm fine, Alfons," she assures, and uses his first name from long habit; something that could conceivably be seen as playing favorites, but not something that she's particularly concerned about. Tradition, after all, went out the window the moment she turned summer to winter and then back again, and what little remained was kicked soundly in the rear when she took her sister into her bed, even if the last part is anything but common knowledge. "Perhaps part of breakfast didn't sit right with me. Either way, I'm sure it's nothing serious."

"Glad to hear it, Your Majesty." His brown eyes are twinkling warmly. "Wouldn't do for you to fall sick just in time for your birthday, after all."

That draws a round of chuckles from the remaining councilmen, and Elsa rolls her eyes as she takes a seat behind her desk.

"Let's not go there, gentlemen," she suggests wryly as they, too, find seats. "I already conceded to having a ball as long as it was part of the Christmas celebrations, and then made the questionable choice of turning the handling of  _that_  over to my sister." More chuckles, and Elsa sighs. "All the servants are hiding smiles when I pass them in the hall, and whenever I ask Anna for details, she simply starts laughing. So please – let's not go there."

There are smiles all around now, and Elsa idly reflects that council meetings have gotten a good deal more enjoyable over the past month; or more specifically since the sour, thoroughly traditionalistic Major Grunnvig finally took his voluntary leave after yet another reprimand from Elsa herself. He's since been replaced by the tall, fair and newly promoted Captain Alvers, who just so happens to have been a fervent fan of Anna's ever since a two-day, fairly non-stop ride from Midheim that left a dozen men in awe of their princess, and started the base for Anna's current standing amongst the Arendelle soldiers.

"On that note, Captain..." Elsa fixes Alvers with a direct, though not unkind stare, and cants her head at him. "The next time my sister attains some sort of injury while in the barracks, please inform me, no matter how minor it is. It was quite startling to have her show up for dinner with a black eye a fortnight ago."

"Yes, My Queen." Alvers ducks his clean-shaven face faintly, and he – like Elsa – is of pale enough coloring that his blush shows vividly, even if his skin still carries more than a hint of a tan. "My apologies, but the princess said that-"

"- she outranks you and that she was to tell me herself," Elsa finishes for him, and waves an easy hand. "I can easily imagine that, yes, and while I ask that from now on you let my orders trump hers, I'm not faulting you or your men for listening at the time. My sister, as I'm sure you know well by now, is  _rather_  stubborn."

"A family trait, Majesty?" Councilman Engfors quips, and sets off another round of smiles, though these are hastily smothered, albeit with varying degrees of success.

Elsa allows her lips to twitch into a smirk, and folds her hands on the desk. "Being in a political assembly at the moment, counselor, I can neither confirm nor deny that," she replies, which results in a series of low, but genuine laughs.

The bimonthly council meetings have  _definitely_  gotten a lot more enjoyable; not to mention a lot less stilted. They're actually crossing the line into being downright pleasant, and by the time half an hour has passed, they're also proving yet again to have become much more efficient because of it, because that's as long as it takes them to go over the items that two hours have been set aside for.

Remarkable, Elsa muses in the privacy of her own mind, how much of a difference the absence of one man can make.

"Well, that seems to complete today's agenda," she says aloud. "Has anything else cropped up in the days since it was set? Our next meeting should prove to be a full one given the new year, so if there's anything we can discuss now, speak up."

Apart from the rustling of clothing and the odd, furtive glance, the room is silent, and Elsa suppresses a sigh and turns another roll of her eyes into a wry smile instead.

"I should hope that you know by now that I don't bite, good sirs," she tells them, and rests her chin on her interlocked fingers. "Out with it, please, since there's clearly something you wish to bring up."

"Yes, Majesty." Aaberg, unsurprisingly, is the one to speak up, since he's the oldest in both his tenure on the council and in age overall. "Forgive us, but the matter is a very personal one where you're concerned."

Elsa merely quirks an eyebrow, and Aaberg cocks his head.

"The overwhelming wish of the people, My Queen, is to see you settle down. You're certainly of an appropriate age, and since the more... tumultuous events of the recent past have settled somewhat by now-"

"- you wish for me to marry," Elsa cuts him off, somehow, since there's so much ice settling in her gut that she's surprised she can even breathe; let alone speak. As it is, she barely recognizes the sound of her own voice, and as she watches Aaberg nod, she spends a few, fervent seconds both wishing for the calm that Anna always teases her about and thanking the stars that her sister is well away from this meeting, since Anna would certainly have something to say about the subject, and she doubts that any of it would be complimentary.

Not that she's having any complimentary thoughts herself. Right at this moment, her mind is mostly chasing itself in panicked circles and screeching, and it's taking all of her considerable self-control to keep from reacting with anger. Instead, she wets her lips and settles her palms on the desk as she slowly rises to a stand.

"Gentlemen," she says as she pins the collected group with her eyes, and finds her own voice to be impressively even. "Before we go any further down this road, let me make a few things perfectly clear. While I realize that my position as the queen regent is a highly political one, I have no intention of playing games of any kind when it comes to marriage. I will take no vows for the sake of anyone's happiness but my own, and I invite no one into my life  _or_ my chambers for either economic or political reasons. I have, if anyone, witnessed with my own eyes what the power of love can truly do, and I outright refuse to even consider marriage for anything less than that. Is that perfectly clear?"

Almost as one, the entire council blinks.

"Of course, Your Majesty," Aaberg agrees.

"Very well." Elsa studies the worn, wooden grain in the top of her desk, and takes a slow breath. "Then, since I doubt you would have brought this up without having some candidates in mind, to whom is it  _suggested_  that I be wed?"

"To Princess Anna, Majesty," says Engfors, with a faint furrow in his brow as if that should have been obvious. "My merchants tell me that all the talk in the streets lately is about how her act of true love for you saved Arendelle."

"Aye," Captain Alvers chimes in with a nod. "Same in the barracks, and while the idea  _is_  unusual, none of my men will go against the happiness of the Red Hood. We're hers until the end. And yours too, of course, My Queen," he adds, almost as an afterthought.

Elsa just  _stares_  at the group as they talk calmly almost amongst themselves, with her eyes open far wider than normal and a distinct sensation of breathlessness so strong it's as if someone just punched her in the stomach. She's been willing to accept – halfway anticipated, really – that hers and Anna's relationship is little more than an open secret at least among the castle staff, because while they are being as discreet as they can, someone  _has_  to have figured it out unless both the castle walls and the people working within them are significantly denser than anticipated. But to have it known publicly? Can they really have been  _that_  obvious?

"Where-" she starts, and then has to clear her throat. "Where did this idea come from?"

Aaberg shrugs his broad shoulders with a remarkable lack of concern. "According to our sources, the notion has been building in the populace for several weeks. It's gained momentum steadily, and now has the support of the majority of the people by far. If it hadn't, we wouldn't have brought it up, Majesty. As the good captain said, the idea is... somewhat unorthodox, but if neither you nor the princess is opposed to it, the opinion of this council is that it would go a long way to cementing the people's faith in the stability of the throne."

So the fact that there  _is_  a relationship between them isn't common knowledge, Elsa infers with the small section of her mind that isn't reeling. "And the fact that we wouldn't be able to produce a blood heir?" she questions with the same section.

Once again, Aaberg shrugs – this time in near-perfect synchronization with the rest of the council – and a part of Elsa is seriously wondering if maybe someone, somewhere, spilled something in the water supply.

"Adopted children can be made equally valid heirs to the throne with some legal finagling," he notes. "Doable, since we'd have well over a decade to complete any such work, yes?"

"Quite," comes the agreement from the white-haired Alvor Halving, who serves as the chief, legal counsel. "It's an unprecedented situation, but that merely means that we get to decide where to raise the bar to. If, of course, you're willing to entertain the notion, Your Majesty."

"And if I may, My Queen," Aaberg chimes back in, and scratches his bearded chin. "Perhaps the existence of Olaf the snowman is a suggestion that your magic is able to, um... create life, if you will."

There's a twitch developing at the corner of Elsa's eye that she's desperately fighting to suppress, and she can't quite decide if she should bang her forehead against the nearest flat surface or start laughing hysterically. Perhaps a little of both would manage to wake her up, because this can't possibly be anything but a particularly absurd dream. And yet, when she sits (falls) back into her chair, she discreetly pinches the back of her own hand beneath the desk and definitely feels it. So apparently this isn't a dream, but she hasn't ruled out the possibility of there being something in the water.

"Are you willing to consider the idea, Majesty?" Engfors questions, and Elsa somehow manages to calmly fold her hands instead of blurting out  _YES!_  with as much force as she can muster, because  _of course_  she's willing to consider it – and far beyond that, quite frankly – but at the same time, seeming as eager as she actually is probably isn't the best decision. And besides...

"I'd rather not give an answer to that without discussing it with my sister," she explains, which is true enough. Marriage isn't something which she and Anna has ever talked about even in jest, simply because at least Elsa never expected it to be an actual possibility. So in all honesty, she doesn't know for certain how Anna would react to the idea. All she's sure of is the fact that she herself is physically dizzy at the thought of actually being Anna's  _wife_  – at taking Anna as  _her_  wife – and that it's bad enough that she runs entirely on automatic as the meeting winds down and the counselors leave, and only snaps somewhat out of her daze when Kai is suddenly standing next to her and squeezing her shoulder with a concerned look on his face.

"Is everything alright, Your Majesty?" he wonders, and Elsa fights the smile wanting to bloom on her face for all of one second before giving into it.

"Everything is perfect," she says, and pats him on the arm as she gets to her feet. "Push my schedule back, would you? I need to make a trip into the city."

Kai blinks, but rallies quickly. "Of course," he agrees, and pulls her chair back before following her out of the room. "When do you expect to return? What about the lunch you requested? How many guards do you want escorting you?"

"Within two hours, give it to whomever wants it – the staff, the guards, the city orphanage – and none," Elsa replies, quick-fire, still smiling wide enough that her cheeks hurt as she strides down the hall.

" _None_ , My Queen?"

"None." She stops by the door to her chambers, and faces the bemused butler. "I wish to do this incognito, Kai. Understood?"

"As you say, Majesty," he replies, clearly bewildered. "And if Princess Anna asks of your whereabouts?"

Elsa chuckles, and slips behind the door. "Tell her I went Christmas shopping."

xXxXx

The city at Christmastime is a new experience for Elsa, and while she allows that her current mood (excited, a little nervous,  _giddy_ ) could very well be coloring her perception, it's definitely a pleasant one. The cobblestone streets are dusted with the faintest layer of snow,and while piles of whiteness near the edges of the roads give evidence of previous clearings, the snow keeps falling slowly. The weather is an entirely natural occurrence this time, and she smiles when she holds out a hand and manages to catch a few flakes in her palm.

Incognito isn't as hard as one might think even for a queen, and Elsa learned that long ago. Clothes and bearing, more than anything, signal a person's standing in society, so all she really needs in order to blend in is a commoner's clothes, a hooded cloak to hide her admittedly distinctive hair and by now well-known face, and to remind herself to move less gracefully than she normally does. It's a little crazy, probably, to just up and leave the castle like this, but she won't be gone for long and she really, really needs to find out if her hunch is correct. Thankfully, Anna told her days back that Kristoff had returned home, and so she knows where to find him.

And it's odd to stand in front of him; it always has been, to a certain point, because the only things they have in common are ice and Anna. It's odder still to look into his eyes and see him shape a faintly sheepish, but satisfied smile, and it's definitely odd to  _hug_  him, and not just for her, because it takes several stunned heartbeats before he chuckles and pats her back more than a little awkwardly.

" _If we could get married, I'd request that you stand for her at our wedding,_ " _Elsa had told him quietly during a moment of peace at the fall equinox._

" _If you could get married, I'd be honored to," he'd replied, and there'd been a glint of an idea in his eyes that she hadn't understood at the time._

"May I come in?" Elsa asks, and Kristoff jumps a little before stepping back and waving her inside the house.

"Sure, sure." He closes the door behind her, and then Sven is suddenly  _right there_  and clearly a lot less nervous about greeting her because he's licking her face with enough force to knock back the hood of her cloak and Kristoff looks  _horrified_.

"Sven!" he cries, and then he's trying to pull back the massive reindeer, apologize to Elsa and wipe off her face all at once. "Oh, jeez, I'm- back, Sven!- so sor- back!- have a cloth here somewh- SVEN!"

'Surprised' would be putting it mildly, but Elsa merely accepts the piece of cloth when it's practically shoved into her face by the panicking Ice Master, and starts chuckling as she cleans herself up. "Now I see what Anna means about always getting a warm – but rather wet – welcome," she comments.

"Oh, God, I'm  _so_  sorry!" Kristoff frets; wide-eyed and certainly a good deal less calm than she's used to seeing him. "I'm really,  _really_  sorry Your Maj- My Qu- Your Ro-"

" _Kristoff_." She isn't injecting a lot of command into her voice, but it's enough to stop him from stumbling any further over the vast array of titles available for her. "Please, just call me Elsa – at least when we're in private. We've been over this."

"Right, right." He coughs into one hand, and then rubs at the back of his head while Elsa scratches a happily groaning Sven under the chin. "Elsa. Sorry. For, uh... both."

"It's fine," she promises, and finds a smile which seems to put him at ease. More so, at least, since they've never really been fully comfortable around each other, but manage, if mostly for Anna's sake.

"It was you, wasn't it?" she questions some time later, when Kristoff has closed the curtains to keep prying eyes outside and they're seated on opposite sides of a wide table with a mug each. Beer – again – isn't something she's ever grown fond of, but she's at least learned to drink it. "Who started this?"

"Hard to say for sure, but yeah." Kristoff is nodding, and has both hands folded around his own tankard. "I think so."

"How?"

"Kinda like a rockslide, I guess," he smiles crookedly. "Starts with one stone that hits a handful of others. They each hit a handful of other stones, and suddenly there's a path where there wasn't one before. All I had to do was bring up the possibility a few times when I was traveling, and before long, I started hearing it myself."

Elsa nods, and watches the foam near the top of her own mug slowly disperse. "You realize that I can never repay you for this," she notes quietly.

"Sure you can." Kristoff takes a long swallow, and then settles his chin in one hand as he regards her. "Ask her. Marry her. Make her happy." His lips shape a grin. "Would make one hell of a Christmas present. Or birthday present for you."

"It isn't quite  _that_  simple," Elsa informs him dryly. "These things take planning. Time."

Kristoff just looks at her. "Time for what? Don't tell me you haven't already designed a ring in your mind a hundred times, Elsa. It's not like you need to commission one from a silversmith."

Elsa glares at him. Then they're both chuckling a little because he's absolutely right, and she's curling her left hand into a fist and concentrating for no more than a few seconds before there's a delicate ring of intricately decorated, silvery ice resting in her open palm. Crafting it is as easy as breathing, because even if marriage was never an option until now, that didn't stop her from dreaming.

She's made this ring more times than she can count.

"Nice," Kristoff murmurs, and then smirks. "Anna's gonna insist on you wearing one too, you know."

"As if that's a problem," Elsa mutters. "I'd wear one through my nose if it was fashionable; I'm hers, and I want the whole world to know. If I design a ring for Anna, however, she should get to design one for me if she wants to. Besides,  _she_  might prefer to have a jeweler make one."

"Maybe," is the amiable reply. "You gonna ask her today?"

"These things take-"

"-time," he finishes, deadpan. "And I ask again: for what? For you to get up your nerve, or for you to  _give_  yourself nerves? It's not like she's gonna say no."

"No." Or at least she hopes not, but the thought alone is still enough to make her nauseous. "It's just... overwhelming, honestly. I never thought this would happen, so right now it's almost as if I can't find my footing, and it's strange because I've done this a thousand times in my head and now that the option is actually  _real_ , I... I don't even know how to ask her."

Kristoff smiles. "But you will."

"I will," Elsa agrees, and takes a deep, slow breath. "I will."

She just hopes that she doesn't end up throwing up her own kneecaps in the process.

xXxXx

Elsa's schedule officially goes down the proverbial creek sans paddle after her little, impromptu excursion, and the hands on the small clock on her desk are approaching midnight by the time she finishes the last bit of paperwork. At least, she muses as she leans back in her seat and stretches her arms above her head with a groan, there's a bit of a backhanded blessing to be found in the fact that Anna is every bit as busy as she is today, so neither of them is waiting for the other to finish up. Yet, anyway.

Of course, as far as she knows, Anna could be waiting for her in bed right now, and that notion is enough to wake her up a little. So she stands and spends a few moments ordering the work she's (finally) finished, and is about to extinguish the small lamp she's been working by when the door to her study opens. And she  _has_  to be tired, because the first thought to cross her mind is whether or not it's actually, physically possible for someone to literally light up a room with their presence.

"Sit," Anna tells her with a smile, and keeps one hand firmly behind her back and out of sight as she crosses over to stand in front of the desk. "And close your eyes."

Elsa studies her for a moment, but acquiesces. Closing her eyes takes a little while, though, since she hasn't seen Anna up close all day, and has – quite frankly – missed the view. Once she does, she picks up on the soft clink of porcelain being set down, but there's a familiar hand covering her eyes before she can open them. Then she's snapping for breath because there are warm lips tracing first the shell of her ear and then the line of her jaw, and her hands are clenching around the chair's armrests when a single finger trails over the front of her throat.

It takes her a few seconds to get her head together when Anna suddenly pulls away, and she both smiles and sighs at the sound of a low, amused giggle at her expense.

"Ca-  _May_  I open my eyes now?" she questions wryly, over the faint dinging of the clock as it strikes midnight.

"Go right ahead," is the cheerful reply.

So she does, and what she sees is a small, porcelain dish holding a single slice of cake – chocolate, clearly - decorated with cream and colorful berries. A hand touches her knee, then, and her focus shifts to warm - if tired - turquoise eyes and a small, satisfied smirk.

"Happy birthday," Anna sing-songs. Then there are soft, smiling lips pressing tenderly against her own, and all Elsa can do is wrap her arms around her sister and pull until Anna is sitting in her lap. Until there are warm hands sliding up the sides of her neck and fingers slipping into her hair, and Anna – as always – tastes sweeter than even the finest of chocolates.

Though she does also taste  _of_  chocolate, Elsa notes, and smiles when they slowly break the kiss.

"You snuck a piece for yourself, didn't you?" she accuses warmly, and watches the freckled skin on the bridge of her sister's nose crinkle.

"A little one," Anna admits with an easy grin. "But it was either that or steal bites of your slice, and that's just rude."

"Anna, you're  _always_  stealing bites off of my plate."

"Not on your birthday." The weight in her lap shifts, and then Anna's leaning back against the armrest and has both plate and fork held securely in her hands; one in her lap, and the other raised to Elsa's mouth. "Open wide."

Elsa studies the fork and its bite-sized load, and then shifts her focus to a set of warmly twinkling eyes. "I'm perfectly capable of feeding myself, you know."

"I know," Anna nods, and the tines of the fork prod gently at her lips. "What's your point?"

"Sadly blunted, apparently." She accepts the bite, and decides to ignore her sister's small, triumphant smile as she chews. It's delicious, certainly; sweet and moist with the faintest hint of tartness, a mixture of dark chocolate and berries that expands across her tastebuds and makes her lick a stray crumb from the corner of her mouth before Anna's finger can secure it.

"Good?" Anna questions, though something about the amusement in her expression tells Elsa that she already knows the answer.

"Mm." She nods, and then waggles her head from side to side. "I think it tastes better on you, though," she observes, and swallows a grin when Anna seems to almost choke on her own saliva.

"What am I going to do with you?" Anna groans as she rests her temple against Elsa's shoulder, and Elsa is replying before she can think the better of it.

"You could marry me," she says very softly, and crosses her ankles and toes and the fingers of the one hand she has behind Anna's back.

"Don't joke about stuff like that," her sister grumbles as she sets aside both plate and fork, and then yawns as she pretty much curls up in Elsa's lap. And Elsa doesn't really know what to say to that because she  _wasn't_  joking, so she just strokes Anna's back gently while she chews on her own, lower lip, and tries to figure out what to do now while her stomach sinks and her heart thumps almost painfully against her ribs.

Then Anna stiffens in her arms, and she feels her press an ear against her chest and suck in a soft, startled breath before she's suddenly under the full weight of that brilliant, wide-eyed gaze.

"You're serious," Anna breathes as she presses gentle fingers over the heartbeat that she undoubtedly heard loud and clear, and Elsa swallows harshly and nods and wills the ring to form for (hopefully) the last time before offering it up between trembling fingers.

"Completely," she promises, and tries not to lose the contents of her stomach as she watches Anna stare at the ring with the most dumbfounded expression she thinks she's ever seen on a human being. Or a snowman, for that matter.

"Ah... bu-" is the first response, with the pale eyes blinking several times in rapid succession. "Wh- that's an  _option?!"_

"Apparently," Elsa croaks, and that's  _after_  clearing her throat four times. "I know this is sudden and unromantic and really not thought through at all, and I'm sorry about that, but I j-" That's as far as she gets before Anna's hands are firmly gripping her face and she's groaning into that warm mouth, and it's all she can do to hold on to both the slim, sturdy body in her arms and the tiny object in her hand as she sinks willingly into the familiar taste of Anna's lips. As ever, she is swept away so very effortlessly by a wave of pure  _sensation._  So effortlessly, in fact, that when the kiss ends, it takes her brain long enough to catch up that she's aware that Anna said  _something_ , but not what that something  _was_.

"Uh..." She licks her lips and blinks, and when her eyes focus, there's warm, wet turquoise filling her vision. "Sorry, what was that?"

Anna's breath washes over her skin when she laughs; low, soft, and a little uneven. "I said yes," she whispers, and Elsa can hear the smile in her voice in spite of how it trembles.

"Yes?" Her hold on Anna's waist tightens, and she can feel her heart skipping at least every other beat while the most ridiculous, utterly disbelieving little grin forms on her face, and she just doesn't have the will or the presence of mind to stop it from blooming.

Anna's fingers comb tenderly through her bangs, and while her chuckle is unsteady and watery, her eyes are as brilliantly luminous as Elsa has ever seen them; practically glowing from within as soft lips kiss her forehead, then her nose, her cheeks and finally press firmly against her own for a long, hard peck. "Yes," she repeats, stronger now, and still smiling. "God, Elsa -  _a thousand times yes_."

Elsa doesn't have the faintest idea as to how the ring actually makes it onto the finger of Anna's right hand. She also doesn't have half a clue how Anna ends up sitting on the edge of her desk with her ankles hooking behind Elsa's knees, but if she thought that those warm hands could make her shiver before, it's  _nothing_  compared to what it's like to feel them slip over her skin with the added weight of that ring and what it signifies.

"You're shaking," Anna murmurs against her lips, and Elsa can feel her smile when she laughs breathlessly herself.

"I'm really only staying on my feet out of sheer habit right now," she admits as their foreheads touch, and Anna's answering giggle is so sweet that she  _has_  to kiss her again.  _Has_  to feel silky fabric and warm skin under her hands –  _has_  to touch and taste and hold and  _love -_  because it feels as if she's going to float away and the only thing keeping her grounded is Anna.

Anna, who moans softly into her mouth when her fingers trace erratically moving ribs, whose head drops back when Elsa's lips find her pulse, and who kisses her lightly when Elsa finally manages to get a hold of herself and tucks her disobedient hands under her own arms.

"Perhaps we should retire for the night," Elsa notes wryly, and clears her throat when she hears the distinctively husky note in her own voice. "Just so I don't end up, um..."

"Taking me right here?" Anna all but purrs, with an almost predatory grin forming on her face when the sound of her voice alone is enough to make Elsa's breath hitch sharply, though the light trace of fingertips up the center of her torso certainly isn't helping. "On your desk, probably with my legs wrapped around your waist, my fingers digging into your back..."

"Anna..."  _God_ , but what this woman can do to her. "You're teasing me again."

"No." Anna shakes her head, and her voice grows both more serious and less intentionally seductive. "I'm telling you that you  _can_ , if you want to." A gentle touch rounds her ear, and there are smiling lips pressing against Elsa's cheek when she feels a fierce blush overtake her face. "But maybe we're better off saving that for later," Anna murmurs against her skin, and then she's pulling back and biting her lower lip in a vain effort to restrain her smile. "Y'know... for when we've been married long enough to be boring."

"Somehow, I can't see life ever growing boring with you around," Elsa breathes when they exit the study and their fingers twine.

Anna snorts, and uses her free hand to swat her lightly on the arm. "Somebody's gotta keep you on your toes."

Elsa grabs the hand before it can fully retreat, and pulls her in for another kiss right there in the middle of the hallway. It's light and warm and slow and sweet, with her lips nipping at Anna's and arms slipping around her shoulders as Anna presses closer with a soft, contented sigh.

And she can't even remember what it was like to have to hide this.

xXxXx

As it turns out, Anna doesn't want a jeweler to create a ring for Elsa, although she most certainly  _does_  want her to wear one. Instead, they rest together in the center of Elsa's (their) bed in the middle of the night; halfway under the softness of the covers, completely naked and both looking more than just a little pleasurably disheveled, because they were lucky to have the door shut before they became so lost in each other that the entire castle could have collapsed around them without either of them noticing. Now, Elsa's reclining back against a thick layer of pillows, with Anna supporting herself on one elbow next to her and one freckled arm slung over her waist.

"Like this?" Elsa questions as she holds up the second ring, because apparently she isn't the only one to have designed it in her own head a hundred times; something that's kept her smiling giddily for the better part of the time since she realized it.

"Almost," is the thoughtful answer, and Anna's hair sparkles in the firelight when she leans over a little and studies the ring critically before touching a careful fingertip to it. "A little wider here and... can you make something  _like_  a stone out of your blue ice, or should we jus-" A pause as the ring changes, followed by a grin. "Oo - cool."

"Literally," Elsa deadpans, and squirms when warm fingers pinch her side. "Careful where you put those hands, Princess. I'd hate to have to start over when we're so close to the design you want."

"Then don't be such a smartass," Anna grouses against her forehead, but still gives her waist a little pat in apology before carefully taking the ring from Elsa's fingers and turning it slowly in the flickering firelight.

Elsa just watches her face; studies the quiet, intense joy in her eyes and the peaceful smile that curves her lips into a gentle bow, and does everything in her power to commit every single detail to memory. For as long as she can, anyway, before Anna is ducking her head and they're kissing softly, with one hand capturing Elsa's and the faint, welcome constriction of meticulously shaped ice settling around her right ring finger.

"There we go," Anna murmurs as they break apart, and keeps their gazes locked when she brings Elsa's hand to her lips and kisses both the ring and the skin around it. "The perfect ring for the perfect woman."

"I'm hardly perfect," Elsa argues, but chuckles when she brushes the pad of her thumb over Anna's mouth and feels her smile.

"Suck it up," is the matter of fact reply, with Anna tugging both of their hands out of the way and the fiery head ducking enough for their lips to brush again. "Because you are to me."

"Oh," Elsa murmurs, and realizes that she's blushing.

"Yeah," Anna giggles, and gives her another light kiss. " _Oh_."

The weight of Anna's head when it settles on her shoulder is warmly familiar, and the slow rush of her breathing is pleasantly relaxing as they curl up together skin to skin. Elsa tugs the covers higher over them after spending a few seconds grasping blindly, and her eyes slip shut at the soothing trace of fingers over her abdomen while her own arm wraps around Anna's back.

"So when are we announcing the engagement?" comes the lazy question after several moments of peaceful silence, and Elsa hears her sister draw in a slow breath that almost becomes a yawn.

"Hmm." She draws idle lines over Anna's spine with her fingertips, and smiles when she feels her nestle closer in response. "The council suggested at the Christmas ball, since it's enough of an occasion to have plenty of people there already. Is that alright by you?"

"Aww, shucks." Anna chuckles, and Elsa is having to release a giggle herself at the feeling of soft lips nipping playfully at her jawline. "You mean to tell me that I have to spend an entire evening showing off this lovely ring you gave me, watching any hopeful suitors of ours turn green with envy  _and_  I get to kiss you in public? Twist my arm, why don'tcha," she drawls, and then pauses. "Why? Do  _you_  think that's a bad time?"

"I think any time more than two seconds into the future is a bad time," Elsa responds dryly. "I'd rather just scale the highest tower here right now and either write it across the sky or scream it at the top of my lungs. Possibly both." She smiles at Anna's snort of laughter. "But I  _suppose_  I can wait a few more hours to tell the entire world that you're mine."

"Ah; your infamous self-restraint," Anna notes, clearly amused, and Elsa swears she has eyes in the top of her head, because when she rolls her own, Anna pinches her side even though there's no way she could have seen it. "That reminds me of something."

"Hm?" She presses her nose into the copper hair, and inhales Anna's unique scent through a long, slow breath. "What?"

"Well, you remember my gown from your coronation, right?" Anna questions, and places a brief kiss to the skin above her chest.

God, how could she forget? While still perfectly modest, the cut of that bodice showed a good deal more skin than was considered appropriate only five years previous, and had put freckled shoulders and slender arms on much more of a display than Elsa had been prepared to deal with. She'd spent the better part of the day thinking about the most unalluring things she could imagine for that reason alone.

Anna's ear is pressing against the skin over her sternum, and she's giggling; presumably at the noticeably elevated rhythm of beats she can hear. Apparently, her checking Elsa's thoughts by way of her heart rate is becoming a thing.

"I'll take that as a yes," she decides, and while Elsa can't  _see_  her grin, she can certainly  _hear_  it. "So now's probably a good time to tell you that I had it remade, since the original literally went up in smoke."

"Oh," Elsa mumbles. It's hardly her most eloquent reply to date, but she's kind of distracted by that fact that the hand on her front is slipping lower and lower with the tiniest sting of nails along the way, and she's parting her legs instinctively because there's no such thing as being too tired or too sated for Anna's touch. "That's good."

"Mmhm." There are soft lips nipping at the curve of her jaw, and moist breath washing over her ear. "One difference, though," comes the calm, almost frustratingly even tone. "I had it remade in blues, instead of greens." And then Anna smirks against her skin – the minx – because those words are timed perfectly with the dip of her fingers into the heat between Elsa's thighs, and the combination of that image and that touch draws a sound from her that she's never even heard before. "I think I'll wear it to the ball, so  _everyone_ -" Meaning Elsa herself, clearly. "- can get a good, long,  _uninterrupted_  look at it."

She's trying to kill her. That has to be it, because the mere  _thought_  of Anna in that gown is enough, but add the fact that she is  _allowed_  to do what she wanted to all those months ago and is  _still_  going to have to behave herself for several hours, then multiply by those warm, knowing fingers dipping and sliding and swirling over slick, sensitive flesh without ever going far enough, and it's a wonder that Elsa can even remember how to breathe.

" _God!"_  she gasps at a particularly firm brush, and only barely hears the low, satisfied chuckle next to her ear.

"Hardly," Anna murmurs against the side of her throat, and then coherent thought just ceases to be an option.


End file.
